#I just feel like on every site I see less and less people interacting and saying how cool someone's work is

[azherwind-art]

"Tell your favorite creators that you like their work, people usually enjoy things silently, but hate tends to be loud"

This is a phrase I just heard from Dnd shorts that captures perfectly why I often try to make the effort of commenting on posts and telling people that I enjoy their work and why Even to small creators, I advice everyone to make the extra effort to tell them, I can guarantee it makes all the difference in the world, it's not cringy or obnoxious, it'll just brighten someone's day

#text #random dambles #please don't think I only say this because of me #I'm very lucky to have gotten such nice messages and comments #I just feel like on every site I see less and less people interacting and saying how cool someone's work is #I've seen AMAZING artworks on all platforms with near to non comment #I know for a fact people engaging with your work is the favorite part of most if not all artists out there #so sad Jocat is retiring out of hearing the hate too loud

[fuctacles]

LATE BLOOMERS

for @steddieholidaydrabbles Spring pop-up | T | 1k | no cw | t4t w transfem Stevie and transmasc Eddie, pre relationship, mutual pining | read on Ao3

Eddie hates spring. 

It’s getting warmer and swarms of people are going outside to piss on his good mood. Kids are screaming, parents are showing publicly how terrible they are, the sun is glaring into his eyes, and birds are chirping. Literal hell. His last slivers of peace are the nights and early mornings when everyone is still sleeping.

Except her.

She’s new here, moved in around Thanksgiving last year, and has been running daily ever since. Eddie had noticed her passing his house now and then, her chestnut ponytail swinging with the movement. 

Every morning, in a very un-Munson fashion, he sits on his porch, the cold planks digging into his ass, with a thick sweater, and a coffee warming his body. All so that he can nod at one of the many joggers blemishing the neighborhood.

He always liked drinking his morning coffee in the crisp, chilly air, still foggy and void of people, still in their beds or getting ready for work. She is a great motivator to do it every morning, to wake up to his alarm and start his day early. 

She’s like clockwork, always on time and never out of breath. Barely missed a step the first time he nodded at her in a casual “good morning, neighbor” greeting, and now every time she passes his house she looks to the side, catches his eye, and smiles, raising her hand in a small wave. 

Eddie’s heart swells in his chest and he’s on the verge of weeping into his coffee every time.

It’s all the interaction they’ve had so far, and he’s not even sure what the woman’s last name is, though the rumors he’s heard say it’s Harrington. He likes to imagine she chose this route to see him just like he chooses to wake up early every morning to drink his coffee on the porch, even though no jogging type would go for a metalhead freak like him. He might just be conveniently on the way to her favorite bakery or something. 

He hates spring a little less when it’s warm enough for local joggers to dress down. It gets him swooning over some ankle like an ancient bachelor. A couple of days later the temperatures rise to sports bra levels which he learns the hard way while choking on his coffee.

It’s tight, obviously, but no amount of support can prevent the obvious bounce accompanying the movement of running. He tries his best not to be a creep and greets her with the same smile.

He thinks he’s prepared for the sports bra the next day, but he’s heavily mistaken when the transgender flag rounds the corner. He gets the coffee on his t-shirt this time as he recognizes the top she’s wearing from the same site he used to get binders from. 

She's a little hesitant with her greeting this time, and Eddie can’t stand it. So he opens his stupid mouth and yells:

“Me too!”

She looks at him quizically so he adds, albeit a tad more timid:

“I’m trans.”

And to his absolute horror, she starts walking up to him. 

He’s thinking the worst things: maybe the colors are just a coincidence, maybe she got it because she liked it and has no idea what it means, or maybe he’s about to get shunned by the local community that he already doesn’t feel welcome in.

But then there’s a megawatt smile directed at him and every bad thought evaporates from his brain.

“Really?” she asks, and he can only dumbly nod. 

“Thank god! I worried it would be like, a problem.”

Her hand is out and she’s right in front of him.

“I’m Stephanie,” she says. Her hand is warm against the morning chill. Enveloping and strong.

“Eddie.”

She smiles, warm and teasing, wreaking havoc across Eddie’s internal organs. 

“Is there a chance I’d get a glass of water?”

Eddie straightens up immediately.

“Yes! Of course! Come in, come in!” He opens the door and motions her inside, hoping the filtering jug is full. 

It is, so he pours a glass for the gorgeous creature in his kitchen.

“Thank you,” she says politely and it’s so simple, but Eddie’s melting inside as he watches her swallow the water and lick her bottom lip.

“Hey, listen…”

“Mhm?” he makes a questioning sound, eyes drawn to the way she crosses her arms, making the muscles flex and frame her cleavage.

“Would it be weird if I asked to borrow a sweater? I heavily overestimated the weather today.”

Eddie was nodding before she was even finished, head bopping so hard he was getting dizzy. 

“No! Just give me a moment!” he said before running up the stairs to his bedroom to grab the first clean hoodie he could find. “Here.”

“Thank you.” She smiles and he has the pleasure of watching her put on his clothing. “It’s stupid, but I’ve been dressing up, or dressing down rather, to…” She bites her lip as she zips up the hoodie. There’s a flaking-away Metallica logo across the chest. “There’s this metalhead on my route I wanted to impress, I guess.”

Eddie swallows down the lump in his throat.

“I’m pretty sure you’d impress him in a skiing suit.”

She chuckles. 

“You think so? Maybe I should just suck it up and ask him out then,” she wonders out loud, turning to leave, and Eddie’s stomach sinks. But then she’s turning back and laughing again.

“Eddie! Do you want to go out with me?”

The relief he feels melts his bones. 

“Of course I do! Why do you think I’ve been freezing my ass on the porch every morning?” He goes for the snark because he doesn’t know how to deal with having this beautiful woman’s full attention.

“Breakfast tomorrow? The usual time?” she asks. Because of course, she’d take him on an early morning date.

“Should I buy a tracksuit?” he jokes, but to his horror, her eyes sparkle.

“That would be perfect.”

Stevie event interest check

#mine #steddieholidaydrabbles #steddie #stevierything #stevie harrington #transfem stevie harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steve harrington #ff #st #stranger things 4 #steddie fanfiction #steddie fluff #steddie fic #steddie ficlet #steddie drabble #cj x steddieholidaydrabbles

[secretmellowblog]

I’ve heard people argue over whether Tumblr is worse/better for artists than other social media sites— but in my personal experience Tumblr is just more consistent and predictable, for better and for worse.

When you post art on Tumblr, you tend to get the level of interaction you would expect from your follower count and the popularity/activity of a fandom. Things tend to level out and remain the same. My Les Mis art posts, for example, always tend to get abooout the same amount of notes every time — because it’s always a combination of my followers and people in the Les Mis fandom.

Posting on Tiktok or Instagram feels more like pulling a slot machine lever. 🤣Sometimes your post will get picked up by the algorithm and shown to everyone, including people who aren’t actively following you or actively engaged in your fandom. Other times the sites will arbitrarily decide your followers don’t want to see anything you post, and refuse to put it up in their feeds, so that you get basically nothing.

I have over 1000 followers on Instagram and regularly struggle to get more than 10 likes. On Tumblr, the amount of notes I get on a post actually IS correlated to my follower count, for better and for worse 😂. I rarely get more than I’d expect, but I also rarely get less.

Art getting popular on tumblr is also slightly more of a “meritocracy?” If something gets popular on Tumblr, it’s because a lot of people shared it; if something gets popular on tiktok/Instagram, it’s because something about the SEO tag combination arbitrarily made the algorithm favor it.

I think that’s part of why I find Tumblr less stressful than Tiktok or Instagram. Sure it’s rare that things on tumblr will artificially blow up and get shown to a million people, but (when you have followers and mutuals) it’s also rare that things will go completely unseen. And I really prefer that reliability to the “slot machine” approach you have to have towards other social media.

#absjjddd #posting on other sites is bad #I do not want tumblr to die #tumblr #artists on tumblr

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

DFF Finale

Not with a bang, not a whimper but somewhere in the middle.

My thoughts are jumbled and all over the place, I came in the finale already spoiled (I couldn't wait and the gray sites are taking too long) and I am not even sure I will still feel 100% like this by the time the week is out.

Ultimatly I agree a lot with what @lurkingshan says in her post here

A lot of the episode was good: The hallucinations were amazing, and I think the character work in all of them (and the series in general, with only some minor hiccups) is very solid. The acting is also very good. I want to see these boys in more roles. The writing from Ep 1 to Ep 9 was AMAZING!! The reveals are all super hard hitting, it felt like there was fire after fire for every episode.

White my baby, a tragic character if there ever was one, HE WASN'T EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE THERE, his boyfriend was basically seeing him as replacement Non since they started dating. We all loved and clowned on this character so hard!! A lot of White's character makes sense in hindsight, at least to me who is like 5 weeks in a couple of layers of theorizing and obessing (I do realize not everyone feels like that a lot of what makes sense for me it's speculation driven by weeks of obsession), even some of the other more baffling moments, like the converstation with Tan and that moment with Phee.

Problems started at EP 10, and while I loved the Tee and TeeWhite scenes of EP 11 thanks to episode 10 they felt way to disconnected and too late. It left the last 3 episodes less focused and the pacing a mess.

And then there is the ending. And while this is by no means the worse ending of a BL I ever seen, and this show is by no means the biggest dissapointment I ever had (that's still Only Friends). I don't think the ending was as strong as it should be.

I think the failure of DFF for me is in two places:

The focus on mystery and reveals primed the audience to expect answears or at least an ending that is more clear then what we got.

The way they did this open ending gave me the impression that they just refused to pick an ending and so they went with "both and none and who knows".

There were ways to make an ending with still some questions left open work: Give me the cops in the house, or show us the bodies as Phee comes out of the hallucination and gives his final breath. Show the bodies in different positions, show the ax in someone's body and no New. Or even have the ending be a journalist talking at the screen keeping up with the layers of voyerism to the story and have them describe only 7 bodies but not say who survive so the audience can pick the option they like best.

Anything that would have given the impression that they actually PICKED an ending.

I am not sure I will be able to re-watch this, I am scared too many things will start to fall apart if I do. While I enjoyed clowing with the fandom and truly loved watching this live (and it has helped me interacting more with people on tumblr) I can't help but feel like maybe if I had binged this, without having time to think over some of the stuff I probably would have enjoyed the finale better.

Maybe I should just be happy that a BL I was hyperfixating on didn't crush and burn like the other two (Shadow and Only Friends).

I am happy BOC experimented and branced out even if they didn't totally sticked the landing, it's a worth while show to watch if you can handle horror. I want BLs to do more stuff like that (experimenting and branching out in different genres) and I want the people in the cast to have a long carrear because I think they mostly all did an amazing job.

In short great job BOC (even if you didn't land all that well at the end there) now give me a poly series: 🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

#txt #dead friend forever

[wifegideonnav]

I'm new to Tumblr. How do Tumblr users usually engage with each other?

well first of all welcome haha. the main ways to engage with people are:

liking and reblogging. platforms like instagram and tiktok run on likes and an algorithm, but on tumblr, people almost exclusively use their dashboard and turn off suggested content, so they’re only seeing what people actually reblog onto their dash. that’s why people on this site are so adamant about reblogs, because likes basically do nothing. i saw someone say once that anything you would like on a different social media, you should reblog on here, and i totally agree. and don’t worry about how old a post is, or about reblogging something you’ve previously reblogged. there are posts from 2014 that i regularly see on my dash a decade later, so literally don’t feel awkward, it’s 100% normal to engage with old posts.

tags. there are three main ways tags are used: labeling original content so people find it in searches, internal organization systems when reblogging or posting (for instance, many people have a tag for their original posts, and will tag reblogs by fandom or character or whatever - important note that reblogs do not show up in search results), and to make sotto voce comments on a post. it’s normal for people to make jokes, add their own commentary, ramble about something semi relevant, or say something to op in the tags on posts they reblog.

reblog additions. every time you reblog, you have the chance to add something to the post, which unlike tags will be retained when someone reblogs from you. a good rule of thumb is to comment instead of tagging when it’s something you actually want other people to engage with, as opposed to tags where you’re just kind of expressing yourself lol. don’t be surprised however if you see people’s tags getting screenshotted and added to a reblog. if this happens because the screenshotter likes what the tag writer said, it’s jokingly referred to as “passing peer review.” (and of course people screenshot tags to criticize or mock them as well.) essentially, tags are like being at a big group dinner and saying something to the person next to you as an aside, and then sometimes that person goes “hey everyone listen to this”

post comments. there’s also an option on every post (unless op has turned it off) for people to comment on the post itself, not on a specific reblog. mostly this is useful for talking to people on personal posts or posts with reblogs turned off. on a bigger post, just reblog it and put your thoughts in an addition or tag.

asks. seems like you figured this one out! lmao. asks are used for a wide variety of things, but essentially it can either be a prompt for someone to make a post or a way of having an interaction/conversation with someone without dming them.

dms. these work like dms everywhere else, except the functionality is limited and it kinda sucks.

games. there are also many varieties of games that people play with each other, ranging from ask games (things like “rec me some music” or a post with prompts and people send you some from that list), tag games (typically there are questions you answer then you tag other people to fill them out for themselves) handwriting tags, follow chains, giveaways, name/url playlists, and more. with the addition of polls, brackets have gotten popular too (eg the tumblr sexyman bracket). there also used to be a lot of in-character ask blogs, where a user would set up a blog and roleplay as a specific character that people could send questions to (there still are some but way fewer and way less popular than there used to be)

to be honest i feel like i have to put “discourse” and “drama” on this list too. people on this site loveeee having the most insane arguments of all time and then everyone else memes the hell out of it. google “sonic for real justice” for an example lmao. (of course there’s also very unfunny political and fandom discourse that goes on as well. i would advise you to avoid discourse blogs as a general rule regardless of whether you agree with their position or not)

tagging people. you can also @ people in posts you think they’d like or if you feel like they have relevant input. typically this is something you would do either to people you’ve spoken to before, or a big blog with an established persona and rapport with their followers (eg if you follow a blog about snakes and you see a random post with snake info that seems wrong but you’re not sure, so you tag them to ask for their expertise).

and this isn’t a specific “mode” of communication but it’s also a thing to “interpret” (for lack of a better word) other people’s posts. for instance, people drawing a photo from the original post (i cant find it but there was a post going around recently where op posted an aesthetic photo of an egg cooking and then several people painted it), or people trying/recreating something a post was about (example). it was also a thing for a minute there where people would rewrite funny exchanges as shakespearean dialogue

those are all the ways i can think of, although im sure i’ve missed some (if other people think of any pls add on!). good luck, and i hope you’re able to meet some cool people!

#asks

[munkiey]

First of all, hello lmao. I just found your blog because I love lmk stuff even though I'm not very active on this social network, I've seen your amazing art on other social networks, and I wanted to ask you kindly if you could help giving me some tips to be able to promote my art or my blog in a better way or how to get people to see my content more, because I have seen that you have been very popular here in such a short time and I have been here trying for more than a year and I have achieved almost nothing, when I share my art on various sites there are no comments and I don't know what to do anymore, I am a bit desperate because I really want to work on this because I love it, it is my passion and also I will want to have some income with commissions because I need it, so yes I would like to make money doing what I am passionate about, but sometimes I wonder if my art is really good or what am I doing wrong because nobody responds to me when I post something. It was long, sorry if this has bothered you, I hope you can answer me, I feel that it would help me.

Okay so what you’re asking about is marketing. Now in the grand scheme of things bud, I’m actually pretty small. Maybe in correlation to a small fandom I might have made an impression but as the internet at large I’m a guppy compared to some of the big fish. Honestly, I prefer it that way. 

The bigger you get the easier a target you are, and the less you’re a person to the people you interact with. Don’t forget that.

The old saying, it's lonely at the top, is very true. The bigger you get the more likely people are to put expectations on you for how you should behave or what they expect. You’ll always be vulnerable to criticism and unable to reach out to your ‘fans’ in a fashion that isn’t either going to leave you exposed or looked at with scrutiny. When it comes to breaking into a fandom though, choosing what your focus is and making sure you have in mind what branding you’re going for. People like consistency and they like predictability. Think about some of the most famous Youtubers today, they’re always updating and they have a ‘theme’ to what they do. I’m a comic artist and wannabe animator, that’s what my content is. I post occasional illustrations between larger projects but as a whole people who follow me can generally expect I have something in the works. 

Looking at your message as a whole though I’m gonna give you a little bit of a hard pill. Don’t base your worth off what other people say. Yes, not getting any responses s u c k s. We’ve all been there and we all want to know how we did. In the grand scheme of things artists are a line of lil dogs wagging their tails and waiting for a pat on the head. You gotta find joy in just chasing that passion though. I see a lot of artists chasing clout and not chasing their artistic passion. They base every decision off what people want, or what they think will get them noticed. It’s very hollow. You can make a living in the comic book, illustration, animation, industry and never be noticed by the online sphere as a whole. Trust me on that, the amount of people I see that I know are published and recognized artists in the industry and have almost no following is a pretty regular thing. Again though, that comes down to your focus and what you want. If you want to have an online presence and gain a following, choose your lane, market yourself and keep your social media oriented towards that. Make a character for yourself and how you want to be perceived by people. I’m not always as cheeky in person, or horrific, but I like the humor of it and it builds a persona for me online.  If you want a career and you want to chase that dream, focus on improving yourself first. If you keep posting it online, trust me, the rest will follow.

There is no magic pill to making a social media following overnight. There are tricks, things to do to help grow it over time. Marketing classes are a thing and can help. But all and all, I’m also a believer in the fact that, if you love what you do, the rest will gradually follow.

#munkiey #asks

[i23kazu]

i've seen ur recent posts and while i understand ur desire for heightened engagement like with 2021 genshinblr, i think u have to accept the fact that 2021 saw a lot of us in lockdown and that's why so many people were so free to create and engage with fandom content like fics. it's 2023 now and everyone has school/work and life in general to attend to — for ur own good, please consider focusing more on ur real life as well.

your posts about note count are also getting really repetitive. the more obsessed u are with getting notes, the less likely ppl are to interact bc they feel pressured into it. can u really call such engagement genuine? are popularity and numbers really ur main if not only motivator for writing?

while i can understand where you're coming from, and i apologise that my posts are getting repetitive, these kinds of interactions are the best way to spread the creations. yes, it's 2023, but there's still so many people on this site – sure! not as many as 2021 where interaction had peaked and i understand that, but still, a sizable community. i have my own life outside of this website as well, anon. :-)

if i were truly obsessed with my notes, i could just... create another sideblog and reblog my work a 100 times. the point of me emphasising the importance of reblogging is to be able to share the love you have for someone's work – because it really is visible in each reblog shared, with or without tags and comments. i have my own commitments in my own life as well and that's why it means so much for me to receive that bit of serotonin and support when people interact with it, when i'm able to write. sure, i may post something almost every day, but that's because writing is my reprieve. i've been writing for a while now, and while my blog has grown, the culture of interaction has also visibly shrunk. other people notice it. other people have spoken up about it.

i apologise if people feel guilt-tripped into interacting, because that's not my intention, and they should be making their own choice on whether or not they want to interact – but if you appreciated a creator's work, this is the reblog site. you can see so many creators fizzle out because of the lack of interactions and literally, a simple reblog will do. of course, many creators love writing and not all of us will care about the notes – but it's a nice thing for us to wake up to. seeing other people appreciate our work makes us want to create more. the more people interact with our work, the higher of a chance we have of getting a genuine, love-filled engagement. and that's just what most of us want. its not about the notes. it's about the actual interactions we get.

#[📥 message received!] #this got long sorry! but i hope this gives a bit more light.

[redfish-blu]

An Open Letter to the Danger Days Tumblr Community:

Now that you’ve read that overdramatic title and are wondering who fucked up, I have something to say about the Danger Days Tumblr community: I Love You.

Danger Days was the first fandom I ever posted for on any site. All the way back in middle school (ho-ly shit). And let me tell you what I found out even way back when: this is not an easy fandom to be in.

For one, most people don’t even know it exists. For two, even less know it in the way it’s been cultivated on Tumblr. Almost every single person has such a niche interpretation of every little detail, that it’s impossible to draw a line through any two versions of the story. Which is a fact I personally love, but I also think it scares a lot of people away. You have to work to be in this fandom. Both as a passive and active fan. It requires patience and tolerance for disappointment.

But that’s exactly why I want to encourage everyone who creates and everyone who listens to Keep Doing That. Like I cannot stress this enough, that is what keeps this fandom and IP alive. Danger Days as a universe would be absolutely nothing without fan work (re: the California Comics), especially a decade later. Without fans who care about this story way more than it has warranted us to care, it would be six feet under. And sometimes I really think that’s what it deserves (and maybe the writers think that as well), but for the life of me I just can’t let that happen. I’ve tried to let this fucking thing go, believe me.

And funny enough, that exact feeling is evidenced by the community on this site too. Which has changed faces almost completely from what it was three years ago for better and less better in some cases. And it’s something I still struggle with adjusting to, but I look at the tag daily. I look everyone’s posts and blogs and art and effort. If you have posted even once in the dd tag my eyes have 100% seen it. So even if I still feel a little out of place, like a ghost of fandom’s past, at least I know everybody. And I know people feel the same way: No rest for the wicked.

When I reanimated from my fandom coma I was fully expecting to find that the community had gone extinct. Partially because all the blogs I used to frequent had straight up died in the three years I was gone. But I pulled up to the gates of the Danger Days tag like Rick Grimes outside of Alexandria, fully expecting to be devastated, only to find New People tilling the fucking field. And it didn’t matter that I now had no idea who any of you people were, it was The Most welcoming thing ever.

I’ll be the first to tell you this fandom bares almost no resemblance to the one I left, and I’m not going to lie and say it’s better now, but the foundation didn’t get blown away in the storm. That’s what I find uniquely profound. That everyone here still wants to try. And that makes me really want to try. And I’m sure everyone would agree that there is often little reward for the effort; but that’s precisely my point in saying all this shit. That even despite the not fun aspects, we all still clock in; and there’s a new post, headcanon, drawing, or fic every freaking day. It’s commendable, really.

If you’re lurking, or post sometimes but feel afraid to actually take a leap here because (the fandom is comparatively tiny to the greater MCR fandom) you’ll be way more out there, and the already established figureheads of the fandom will definitely see your stuff: post post post. This is my formal endorsement to Just Post That Shit. And Interact With That Shit. I spent a year gathering the courage to publish the tiniest thing while behind the scenes I literally wrote about 60+ works. You have to respect your own creativity and trust that other people will give it the time of day.

So do not feel crazy or discouraged about your ideas here! Like we literally need them to function, I would not be here if it wasn’t for all the people three years ago who just posted all their thoughts about Danger Days. About everything. Obscure or not. It’s truly a gift that this fandom has attracted people who are willing to work their brains because the original creators let it fall flat. I cannot tell you how much being in this fandom has actually helped me out in my writing and analysis skills.

So yeah. I fucking love this fandom, I love being in it and I love seeing that people are still stoking the flames. I wanted to say all this crap because I knew I’d be able to articulate it for the people who can relate but don’t want to be the first to say it. Which is okay, understandable. As I said earlier this fandom is like yelling your thoughts out into a very echoey room that only has a few people in it. So I’ll shout first and maybe it’ll make other people more comfortable to shout back.

#i tried to make this as easy to read as possible #this is also an open discussion btw. welcome to the fuckin conference room #we’re all on the council #danger days #mcr #ttlotfk #ttlofk #kobra kid #killjoys #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #party poison #jet star #fun ghoul #danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #cas types #long post

[olderthannetfic]

I don't get this "they discussed nsfw themes with minors they are totally a predator" thing I see even on proship side of fandom. Don't get me wrong, if it was a random adult getting random minor roped into discuss fetish stuff with them, it's could be red flag (still — when I was a minor I was deeply interested in some s/m practics and spent a lot of time in bdsm circles reading, asking and talking about this stuff completely on my own will so it depends). For example, I have one friend whom I know since they were sixteen. We started from them making a nsfw art for my fic and immediatly developed into talking in details what other kinky stuff they can draw. Predatory? God forbid, just pure entusiasm about more art for rarepair! Recently — and it was hillarious and awkward — I joined a fandom chat with people I don't know. We talked for a couple of days, about nsfw topics too, then one of people there told that they tried to audition as main kid character in our show when there still was casting. I was like "wait, it was less then two years ago and they specifically asked for preteens, 13 yo max?" and they was like "lol yeah, I turned fifteen like month ago". I asked them privately if they are good with nsfw stuff I bring into chat and they were like "yeah?? or we won't ask you to join?? duh". Which is fair, since, again, they already read and commented a lot at my nsfw fics and I did the same for them and we had little chat about there at twitter before I joined the group chat. So like... it's fandom, it's the place where people under 17 regulary read, write and draw stuff they shouldn't see without parental approval untill they turn 17, and like how it should work? You shouldn't comment a fic if you don't know if author minor or not? Or like you can gush about how this and this is sooo hot in their fic but you can't talk about this in private? Minor can like all your nsfw stuff and tell you how good it is but if you link them to other creators with same themes suddenly you're a predator who sends porn to minors and worth a callout? I don't want to be like "back in my days" but I was hanging with fandom adults since I was 13 yo and nsfw stuff was discussed freely around me and I just haven't joined until I was interested in topic, which was probably around 15, and no one thought it was somehow unsafe or damaging for me, myself included, but like maybe I'm missing something...

--

Now that I'm in my 40s, I don't particularly want to discuss horny stuff with teens in private. It feels weird in a way that it didn't in my early 20s.

But I despise how pearl clutching inevitably leads to the idea that even telling people kinks exist is "adult content". As a kinky teen, it was hugely formative to me to go read a bunch of adult perverts' web manifestos. I had all these informative books from the local sex-positive bookshops that talked about how to do bondage safely too.

I was able to get a lot of good info without really interacting with older people much, but that's harder these days. Lurking is more penalized. Search engines hide the ancient 90s sites. If you want to even find info, even just recs for books to go read on your own, a lot of that is through social sites that are all about interacting. That's just how it is now.

Seeing predators under every bush actually just cuts young people off from information and resources.

[comfortfoodcontent]

The new modern internet dominated by social media, culture wars, capitalism, brands, monetization, cancellation, insanity brainrot, overall nastiness and fake bullshit where every single person needs to have an opinion on literally everything is such a mistake. Social media is a mistake. Everyone is in bloodthirsty competition with each other for validation. It is sad and tiring and so unhealthy. I've made so many moves trying to leave the space after it rewired my brain to log off and deprogram but it is hard. I miss when the internet was a wild west of people just fucking around and making stuff for themselves or their friends, following their passions and largely acting pretty normal as they definitely spent some time absorbing life through a screen but also lived in the real world. We have a whole generation now that never knew what it was like before, raised and molded by a world where they are not in the real world, but safe behind a screen in their own reality. It is fucking BLEAK. I don't see a way back to what it was and I feel so sorry for everyone caught up in it, including myself. I post here on tumblr as it seems to be the only place left that is a link to the old internet that still exists in a functional, easy to use form. I barely interact with others and don't care about the social aspect of this place and tend to post or write solely for myself, just to get it out there and archive things that bring me joy. I say all this because I truly have come to a point where 90% of the internet now brings me no joy. I want to disengage entirely. The real world is so much more rewarding. I enjoy my time on here, but just like my now defunct Twitters, I will be using this app less and less. I still want to run my CFC Canon sister site and posts and I like having this to post random panels from a comic or old ads or old video game magazine pages but I also just don't want to be a member of the cycle of soul draining fake bullshit anymore. I don't think the modern internet is for people like me anymore. People seem gleeful to destroy others and destroy themselves in the process, to be a brand, to be anything other than a real authentic human being who has empathy and a life. I don't want to continue to lose sight of reality and exist behind a screen on social media, so this is my rambling way of trying to quit here too eventually. When you do use social media, try to be responsible, try to be empathic, try to remember what normal, real life is and how human beings are weird, lovely, fucked up things containing a myriad of contradicting elements. No one is just one tweet, one brand, one thing. Try to accept others or at the very least just stay the fuck out of things you have no stake in. Essentially shut up, log off, and stay true to you and yours. Be good everybody

#me #my writing #internet #old internet #thoughts #writing #me rambling #hate modern society #i dont fucking know

[gingerhastoomanyobsessions]

for a webbed site that claims to love rehabilitative justice tumblr sure has a love of vengeance huh. somehow we’ve created a digital atmosphere where literal murder is less bad than (checks notes) not emerging from the womb with a perfectly calibrated moral compass and the Correct Political Opinions

I’ve seen people on here say that, not only can people Not Change, but that people who try to change are a) lying b) manipulative and c) undeserving of the chance to change. besties…becoming a better person isn’t about whether or not you deserve to become a better person, it’s not even about becoming 100% perfect, it’s about doing damage control after you realize you fucked up. like yeah people you’ve hurt aren’t obligated to like you/forgive you/interact with you, but tumblrites seem to think that anyone who’s ever made a serious mistake should be exiled from society and/or guillotined. we’ve gone from reasonable and correct takes about how people change (ex. “it’s not my responsibility to teach you”— yes! of course it shouldn’t be up to underprivileged random people on the internet to educate the uninformed!) to utterly deranged ones (ex. “nobody with privilege will ever realize that they’re doing harm and the ones who claim to be in the process of learning are just virtue signaling and should be punished for it”— a take I’ve seen applied to men learning about feminism, cishets becoming allies, white people learning about antiracism, relatives of shooters who go on to advocate for gun control, etc)

you do realize that people can genuinely change for the better, right? I’ve seen my parents un-transphobia themselves firsthand, going from thinking that my sibling came out “for attention” to wholeheartedly believing in trans rights. my grandma’s father was every kind of asshole imaginable and she grew up indoctrinated, but as an adult she broke away from him and has spent the rest of her life working on unlearning stuff. my cousin grew up in the rural south and parroted his rural southern dad’s opinions until he was thirteen and started actually thinking for himself, at which point he did a total 180 and is now studying history with a focus on the evolution of the rights of the underprivileged

so when I see people on here say that people shouldn’t change because they don’t deserve to change it rubs me the wrong way. cause at that point it sounds like you’d rather have that person stay harmful so you can stay mad at them, instead of letting them change and gaining yourself an ally. again, you don’t need to interact with them, but. at this point it kind of feels like you care more about hating The Oppressors than about protecting The Oppressed.

#also for the love of god this is about politics not fandom. #TO BE CLEAR I do also believe in rehabilitative justice for literal murder whenever possible as well. #i think that the vast majority of humans would be ok people if not for circumstances #(ex indoctrination trauma desperation externalized-self-hatred ignorance etc) #and that rehabilitation/change isn��t about whether or not you ‘deserve it’ but about whether or not you’re making an effort #because either we punish people for ever and ever Or we gain allies. and one option is more tangibly beneficial than the other #standard disclaimer: I am white and therefore probably verbalizing some of this in a wrong or questionable way and/or have holes in my logi #because I have blind spots due to privilege. I know. Nobody’s obligated to tell me where they are or how to fix them #but I don’t hold it against you if you read this and think ‘yikes. (x) sentiment is kind of questionable’ and inform me if you so choose #so long as you don’t literally want me exiled and/or dead it’s chill. to be clear. calling people out/pointing out bias is one thing #calling for their head on a platter is another

[erinelliotc]

Why is everyone talking about Eddy's haters when he doesn't have any? No one draws fanart for him where he is being killed, on all sorts of rating sites he always ranks high, but in antitopes he ranks low, everyone feels sorry for him.

Uh, well, I don't know if you saw this post. I recommend reading it so you can get clarification on your question.

I'm certainly not the best person to talk about this because I only started interacting with the fandom 5 months ago. I haven't been here very long, so I can't tell you from experience what things were like, what the fans were like. But it seems Eddy used to be hated a lot by fans while Double D was deified, and these days, fortunately more people are defending Eddy from this unfair treatment (at least here on Tumblr). Maybe you think he has no haters because this happened. Possibly things have changed and today Eddy receives more recognition and appreciation, and it's good that it changed! I suggest you talk to other people who have been in the fandom for longer, as they will be able to clarify this in more detail.

"No one draws fanart for him where he is being killed"

Uh, first of all, there are many different ways to show hatred towards someone or something, this is just a very... specific example you gave. Your way of thinking seems to follow the same logic as those people who try to minimize and belittle the oppression that some letters in the LGBTQ+ community go through, saying things like "No one gets killed for being (insert some letter here)", or "This? This is nothing. You don't know what real oppression", as if the oppression they suffer is "less significant" or that it isn't even "real" oppression just because it doesn't go that far. Anyway, let's get back to the main topic. We also can't say for sure if there hasn't been any fanart of him being killed, maybe there is, who knows? But that's not the point here.

"Everyone feels sorry for him"

From the way you talk, you give me the impression that you yourself are someone who doesn't like Eddy very much. If that's the case: The show screams right in our faces that Eddy was secretly crying for help. He was abused by his brother and developed an extremely unhealthy emotional dependency and a toxic and abusive relationship with him, thinking the bad things, the scams that he did were cool, and seeing his own abuser as his role model and the person he most admires in the world, which is why he acted like a jerk this whole time. It may be hard for you to empathize with him, and that's okay, honestly, not everyone is able to forgive what someone, real or fictional, has done, even if the person had reason to do it and is genuinely regretful for their actions. But people have every right to feel sorry for him because he is a pitiful character, and I don't say that in a pejorative way. He really has a very sad backstory and is deeply hurt, in pain, suffering all the time trying to act like a confident, strong, cool guy, using a disguise of false confidence and acting as if he doesn't care what others think, but actually having destroyed self-esteem and failing every day of his life, and not only that, but also seeing others acting like him and succeeding where he didn't and not being punished like him (you have to agree that the other kids also act like jerks, maybe not as much as he does, but often, and nothing happens to them. They always remain friends and hang out together, even though they act badly to each other), or even him doing nothing wrong and taking the blame too. Life tries to bring Eddy down in all the most absurd ways possible and laughs in his face, he sees himself as a big failure, and yet, the guy always has the energy and the guts to keep moving forward and ignore all this shit, hoping that someday things will work out for him as well as they do for others. Personally, I don't understand how not to feel sorry for him.

Anyway, as I said, you have the right not to like Eddy if that's the case, no one will try to convince you to change your opinion, but I think it's important for you to understand that the fandom didn't simply decide to invent Eddy haters who don't exist, and that Eddy isn't just a simple jerk everyone decided to feel sorry for for no reason and treat him like someone wronged when he isn't. He is, or at least was, wronged, both on the show and by the fandom, that's a fact. It's also important that you understand and respect other people's right to feel sorry for him and defend him :)

#ed edd n eddy #ededdneddy #ed edd and eddy #EEnE #eddy #eene eddy

[foreverdolly]

I wanted to post something super quickly just so that you all know why I didn't post anything on Saturday.

I am a human being that does not get paid to write on this site or any other for that matter. I write what I feel motivated and inspired for. Sometimes that means that a series that you enjoy isn't quite ready to be posted. Whether that is because I haven't finished it, don't want to post it yet because I'm still editing, or I am excited about something else that I have written- it is my choice. I love you all, and I try to post what you all want to see, but at the end of the day this is my blog. Can I not enjoy writing? If I posted what I felt excited about, then you guys would be getting posts weekly again. It seems that every time I do that though, there are people that private message me "Where is Fake dating" "When will the last part of Fake Dating be posted" "I saw you just posted, but where's Fake Dating" every single time. I love that you all enjoy that series so much. It makes my little heart happy, but sometimes it can feel like a slap in the face- like the thing I just posted wasn't worth your time.

Someone said something on Saturday that rubbed me the wrong way, and made me feel as though no one cares what I write as long as it isn't for this one particular series. "Fake Dating" is fun to read, I totally get it. It's a lot of people's favorites, and I'm so glad you all enjoy it to this degree. Notes wise, however, it isn't my most popular work. The last update, despite being pinned to my page, has less than four hundred notes.

I'm trying to reach new people on this platform, and I'm also trying to get interaction back up to the level that it once was. The hiatus that I took (which is completely my fault) has made my blog plummet in popularity, which is damaging to me since I spend so long on my fics. It's not just hours, but days of work. I write the first draft, do a read through so that I can add/remove certain things that don't flow well, edit it, and then read through it again. This is the reason why it takes so long for me to post a fic.

I was unbelievably excited to share something that I had written, which has been my favorite thing to date. I adore all of you. I adore writing. I adore Elvis and Austin, and I can't wait to broaden the range of this blog and start writing for other people and characters. Fake Dating will be completed shortly, but please allow me to post some things that were on my WIPs in the meantime. I have not and will not post anything that I'm not proud of, so when I post please give it a chance. Who knows, you guys might like this series even more than you do Fake Dating.

Chapter One of my new series will be posted this Friday at 5:30 est.

#foreverdolly #interactions #fake dating series #current wips #I have so many fics ready to post but I'm too scared #new series alert #lil rant #im not mad at anyone #just super in my own head #i will probably delete this soon

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Oh, the Lure of Emily

I've been withdrawing.

Not for all that long, I don't think, but social media goes so fast, so that means letting a lot of opportunities to be "social" disappear into the ether. I shouldn't. I need to practice connecting with people and it used to be so much easier for me to do that on the internet, but I really hate just about everything about it now. It's hard to put what I mean into words fast enough, and it seems like that's hard for a lot of people, but we're doing it anyway. That's a lot of what I don't like interacting IRL, and it's here now. I haven't found a place that's not like that.

I entered into this level of interaction at the behest of a soulless corporation that doesn't care about any of us (clearly) and I'm being asked to pay more than I wanted to give (ex. curate an ever-lengthening feed of more people who want to be seen, help train AIs who'll render me and others invisible, accept a certain amount of increasingly heinous ideas with no pushback to be polite/for my own mental health/to keep my interaction from being nothing but that stuff), in return for much less than what I wanted to get. Mainly, it's so strangers can click a button that says they "like" something I did, and never interact with me, or any other aspect of me, ever again.

It's like that on my site, too, except I disabled the "like" and comment functions out of frustration. The interface became unsustainable and It's mainly bots using it. I've improved my ratio of "recorded clicks that were probably a human being" vs. "probably a webcrawler or spambot" for the privilege of seeing how few people are interested.

And social media isn't helping. I mean, why would it? It's getting all it wants out of me on spec, and it does not have to deliver visibility. It never did. That was always something I needed to "earn." It just seemed to be easier to do that in Web 1.0. I had a message board, once. It survived a move from one dying host to another (which, I think, is also dead now - everyone's on Discord) and I picked up enough people to write and have fun, with very few jerks I needed to ban, and no bots. Wow. If someone was being a total bastard, they were made of meat and I could yell at them and register an objection like a person. Does anyone out there remember that?

A big part of me wants to be a postmodern Emily Dickenson. You can have my work after I'm dead, if you want it. I'll "publish" by printing it out and putting it in a box. Even the fanfic stuff. Interacting with fandoms hardly seems worth it for me, they've got their own issues. And, as for social, you may have one garden party a year, and maybe I'll exchange emails with one guy who says "this stuff is good". We live small enough, and we're doing well enough, that I could probably hide and keep making art uncompensated. Unless something happened, and then I'd probably wind up on the street or in an institution of some kind. Not the nice kind.

And, as much as you [as in, anyone who trips over this] would protest the loss of me to my face - out of some feeling of human solidarity or philosophical devotion - were I to vanish, it wouldn't matter where. You'd get used to not seeing me. You'd read something else. Maybe I'd be happier, maybe I wouldn't, but that wouldn't involve you, so you'd move on.

That big, dumb jerk Nietzsche (who was, at least, made of meat) posited that Sisyphus must be happy, because he knows he's doing what he's supposed to and what's going to happen next, forever. But, really, the only thing you'd have to do is say to him, "Every time you put one iota of effort into pushing this rock, there's a small chance it'll take off and fly. If you're really doing your job, it will, it's just a matter of time!" And then it doesn't. Not just for his whole life, for eternity.

I'm not being punished for cheating death. I'm being punished for cheating corporations - not even cheating them all that much, I don't think, but it's enough. I don't look profitable, because that wasn't why I started pushing this rock. I wanted to make a difference. I'd like enough money to live and keep creating, and to pay some people to help me, but all that's just some boxes to tick on the way to making a difference. And I can't tick those boxes for a corporation or for myself.

The only thing that's gotten me attention is when someone bigger than me gives me a namecheck. I could just keep begging creators I love to do that, but a lot of people do that, and I don't think creators like it. They didn't ask for that responsibility. They don't have time to vet every person and see if their work is actually good or just AI generated garbage. Or delusional garbage from someone who thinks they can create, but can't, really. I'm losing the confidence to keep begging people to understand that I'm not delusional. Maybe I am, ya know? That would explain my situation too.

At least, if I kept it all to myself, I'd be dead when someone found my boxes and boxes of papers and chose an excerpt for their treatise on hypergraphia in freaky recluses.

Thoreau got it twisted. People make pretty baskets so someone will use them. If it has no use, it's neither a basket nor an art object. Someone has to pick it up and use it for it to be either of those things, and hopefully both. I use my baskets. I think other people could, but I know I use them. It would be a lot easier for me to do that if I didn't keep leaving them outside when I've finished weaving and hoping someone will pick them up.

But, I typed this into a window on Tumblr, so it's going outside with the rest. As will the others, for the time being. My words will probably be used to train an AI, and already have been. Yours too. Self-determination is reserved for the Emilies. I do want it, but...

Not enough to give up this painful hope that a rock might fly.

[dykeyuu]

i agree that your living essence is present in every cell. but i don't think we can say consciousness is only a series of electrical and biochemical signals. what we can say is that electrical and biochemical signals have a causal relationship with consciousness. but we don't yet know the exact shape of that causal relationship.

is your consciousness different from mine? of course, our bodies and cells are different. do we each produce two distinct separate consciousnesses? or is the same consciousness interacting in a causal relationship with both of our bodies?

electrical and biochemical signals happen at a scale that we can easily study. but what about the quantum scale? what's going on in our body at the quantum scale?

i think you may have misunderstood me, which is probably more my failure to communicate than yours, when i said i feel as though my consciousness is present in every cell. i feel that way because i don’t believe the consciousness is anything more than a network of signaling pathways being constantly stimulated and regulated. every cell in my body is “conscious” in that it’s constantly receiving input and making minute adjustments based on cellular/organismal context— i eat a cookie, which increases my blood sugar, which activates a transporter protein on the surface of β-cells in the pancreas and causes glucose to be taken into a cell (one cell, for the sake of simplicity), which stimulates glycolysis and therefore ATP production in the cell; the increase in ATP closes ATP-gated potassium channels, which traps potassium ions inside the cell, which causes the cell to depolarize, which opens calcium channels and lets calcium into the cell, which causes the exocytosis of insulin-containing vesicles and the release of insulin into the blood. my cells recognize a stimulus and, through a series of electrical and biochemical signals, produce a response. my blood sugar goes up, my pancreas senses this and secretes a hormone that’ll take my blood sugar back down. all five of your senses function on signaling pathways— the key signaling event that allows you to see, bizarrely enough, is the light-induced isomerization of retinal from cis to trans. the retinal is bound to an opsin protein, and in the trans configuration, retinal exposes a binding site that cis-retinal had been covering up. once that binding site is open, transducin binds and a whole series of chemical and electrical events ensue that eventually result in the nerve impulses that your brain uses to piece together an image based on the way the world around you is reflecting or emitting light (and it’s not actually eventually— this all happens in less than a second). your growth and development, from the moment of conception to the moment you cease to exist entirely, are facilitated by signaling pathways and if i started listing those off i’d never stop. your memories and personality and identity are stored in the connections between particular neurons in your brain— calcium is essential to learning and memory because it activates calmodulin, which activates CaM kinase II, which, in its active form, activates more of itself independent of calcium/calmodulin. through this mechanism, a transient calcium signal is turned into a constitutively active CaMKII signal. CaMKII is a structural protein, and more importantly a master regulator within the synapses, and it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that CaMKII is necessary for synaptic plasticity, learning and memory— even something as intangible as memory is rooted in biochemistry. the brain is ridiculously complex, and the body’s system of communication with itself is just as ridiculously complex, and what we know is barely a drop in the sea. given all that, is it really so hard to believe that our entire consciousnesses, everything people like to classify as the “soul”, could be products of our highly individual and specific cellular contexts— our genetics, our epigenetics, our environments, even our memories— interfacing with a cell signaling system that’s been evolving for billions of years?

i’d leave it there for the punchy ending but i do actually have somewhere i’m going with all this. in my mind, it makes far more sense to believe that every aspect of my being is rooted in material reality than to believe that there’s some ephemeral “life force” or “soul”, some essential piece of me that is somehow a separate entity residing within my body. the comfort i would gain from believing i have a soul that transcends my body would be overpowered by the discomfort i’d feel at not understanding the scientific basis of my belief. i find much more comfort in believing that i am a highly complex organism and that everything that makes me unique, everything that makes me a person, all of my love and curiosity and determination and thirst for knowledge, is rooted in material reality. it’s all tangible (or at the very least, theoretically detectable). that’s very powerful to me.

i’m not gonna speak on the quantum thing because all of my quantum physics knowledge comes from chemistry classes and i could barely pass general physics so i’m definitely not qualified for that discussion (unless we’re talking about orbitals i’m pretty decent with orbitals lmaoo). i’ve got no fucking clue what happens in the body on a quantum level. my academic disinclination towards physics tells me that it’s not my business what happens in the body on a quantum level, but truthfully i’m very interested in the answer because i like to understand the way things work on every possible level (hence the chemistry degree in progress).

one final note: i’m high as shit and i have just spent the last 5+ hours smoking, listening to the same song on loop, and alternating between answering this ask and reading the wikipedia for cauchy sequences (and several other related wikipedia pages— the devil is on my shoulder telling me to take real analysis even though i know i’d hate it). do with that information what you will.

#autistic girl take: if you let yourself be a little spiritual about science you will see the divine everywhere you look #autistic girl take 2: life is happier when everything has a logical explanation (whether or not that explanation is known) #actually is that an autism take or an ocd take… #because chief im not gonna lie knowledge is a collection of collections and complete collections correspond to moral purity🫣 #long post

[radioactive-earthshine]

not to be negative out of the blue but I'm feeling kinda down and you seem like you might be sympathetic to this issue in fandom

Is it just me or does it feel like there are less earnest spaces for nerds every day?

I feel like every nerdy space I've been in is slowly being over-run by people who only enjoy things ironically or enjoy an adaptation of them and actively mock what the space is meant to celebrate (most well known example probably being the leagues of MCU fans who think that comics are cringe but go to comic conventions anyway)

Every day I feel like there are more people who engage with nerd stuff just to mock it and gawk at the people who actually like it and I'm just tired.

Your blog is super refreshing though I love the way you love all these nerdy things with your whole heart instead of hiding behind irony or a "too cool for this" attitude

I feel like there's always going to be people within a fandom who are going to make it difficult, and people who are not part of the fandom at all who insist and consist on hating on X thing for the soul purpose of being negative.

This is unavoidable no matter WHAT fandom you are in.

I'm not sure exactly what the scenarios are for you but in my case I am lucky to have a fandom space in real life that is encouraging for all things nerdy - and online I have curated a space that has filtered out most people that I don't want to interact with.

I stick to sites I know I have control over most of the content I see, and use the tools at my disposal to make the best environment possible.

There is a certain amount of skill also involved with blocking people and just moving on. Most people who seek you out to get you upset often won't pursue if you just... give them nothing.

Give them nothing.

No reply, no quick quip. Just a block or nothing.

This can be VERY difficult for some people because we LOVE a good comeback!

But honestly giving someone nothing is more effective than anything.

Basically at the end of the day there are some things that are outside of your control (you cannot stop people from mocking your faves, like I cannot stop people from infantilizing Bart) but at least within your online presence you can control a lot of what you see and who you follow.

If this is mostly an online thing I really would consider who you are following, what the site is, and how you can make it more to your liking. It might involve unfollowing a lot of people, blocking certain people, and then following those who are just as nerdy as you are.

I am so sorry you are feeling like this, but the good news is I feel very good in the space I have.

There will always be people that just will hate on comics, you can't stop them, but you can ignore them.

I am also so glad this blog is a safe space for nerdiness which is what my goal is.

#im sorry if this is not quite what you were looking for