#and maybe people will want to follow you if you're reblogging cool creative content!

[slightlyrebelliouswriter23]

Hi! I just saw the post you reblogged about likes... and while I definitely don't disagree, I feel like there's more to it for some people (or maybe just me). I personally have 0 followers. Well, I have some but they're all bots and I need to block them but haven't gotten around to it. Because of this, I usually only like things--because what's the point? No one else will see it. If I had followers I'd reblog, but I don't. So I don't.

hi nonnie! reblogs don't just widen the scope of people who see our stuff! they tell the tumblr algorithm which posts to boost onto other people's dashes with the tagging system. the more reblogs the post has, the more tumblr will promote it to the people following the tags we use. and also! it adds another note! it's like a double kudos! and why wouldn't you do that for your fav content creators?

so reblog stuff! it still helps us whether you have 300 followers or 3!

#and comment but ya know. i know that's harder for some people #reblogging takes literally 0 seconds #it helps us even if you have 0 followers #and maybe people will want to follow you if you're reblogging cool creative content! #that's almost exclusively why i follow people. for the content they reblog #anywayssssss i will probably never shut up about this issue and you will probably never come up with a reason that convinces me #that likes are just as good as reblogs #likes say ''i saw it but didn't like it enough to put it on my blog'' #again idc how many followers you have that's really not the point #reblogs say ''oh hey look at this cool thing this person made! i want to hang it up on my wall'' #it's just *better* #and tells me a lot more than likes ever will #(since the like button is used so ambiguously on this website) #sorry if this came off abrasive i haven't had my coffee yet sfkgjf #asked and answered #em answers #nonnie

[there-must-be-a-lock]

it's fresh and exciting, and I love it, and more than that, I love it for YOU. / And of course your writing has always been GOOD it's not about technically ability. I just feel like we are seeing a different side of you. // And maybe just maybe what you're working thru isnt quite so dark any more. It's still deep, and beautiful, and thank you for sharing! / But.... I hope you can hear what I am trying to say. DO you have any thoughts?

Hooo boy. Okay, so, I’ve been thinking about this some, because I’ve definitely noticed this in my own writing! I had a thought, the other day, that I should apologize to the people who originally followed me for smutty SPN reader inserts… because that is NOT the majority of what has been happening on this blog lately. Oops. I’m not actually sorry though. 

Basically, a couple things have changed. 

1. At the end of January, I finished Marked. It was the most time-consuming (over two years) most serious (meaningful and personal) and longest (83k) thing I’ve ever written. For the two years I was working on it, I think everything else I wrote was mostly filler: romance, smut, whatever, all of it basically served as a palate cleanser between deep difficult dark excursions into Marked. So when Marked was done, I felt really satisfied, like it would be okay if I never contributed anything else of substance to the SPN fandom, because I was proud of that one thing I’d accomplished. I also felt more confident, because I’d proved to myself that I could tackle a project that big and actually follow through and finish it. Most importantly, though, I felt like I’d worked through a really major trauma, and moved through a major step in my healing process, and I could move on with my life. Now that the Big Trauma was purged onto the page (doc, whatever) I could free up some brain space to think about other serious life experiences and delve into other dark nasty corners of my psyche. Wheee! 

2. I joined a lovely little Slack chat full of smart, supportive, talented, creative, kickass ladies, whose opinions I respect beyond measure. Finding that community of people who are always there if I need criticism or brainstorming or support or whatever else is a huge, HUGE boost to my creativity. I used to have random “oh it’d be funny if…” thoughts and I’d kinda brush em off and let them go. Now I share them, and there’s somebody there to come back with “that’d be hilarious, and also this should happen, and also here’s a picture of Harry Styles in a collar, now WRITE THE THING.”  

2a. One incoherent flail from one of the Slack crew always means more than any number of reblogs from random people. Not that comments and messages don’t feel good, always, but it means so much more coming from someone whose work I admire and whose opinions I value, and who I care about on a personal level. 

3. I realized that reader engagement was seriously down, and that there was no way anything I wrote was going to get as many notes as it might’ve two years ago, and that the amount of time and energy I put into things is never proportional to the amount of notes those things get. When I realized that, I took my one last fuck I’d had to give about notes or whether anyone would read something, and I chucked it out the window. Defenestrated that fuck. I have zero fucks left. 

So, where does that leave me? Fuckless and happy. 

No, literally though, fuckless. By which I mean, thanks to the Womanizer and some soul-searching, I’ve realized that I’m very content on my own. I’m just not particularly interested in sex right now, and I think that’s come through in a major way in my writing. Not that I haven’t written any smut, but it’s all had an underlying theme/issue/twist to it. Finally was about consent and communication and how difficult it can be to be honest with a partner. Envy was about, um, envy, and how ugly it can be. The most romantic, “normal” smutty things I’ve written were probably Five Seconds and the Everything quarantine ficlets, and those were pure escapism, because 2020 sucks and so I rewrote some of it. We are in a shitty situation and I wanted to imagine it less shitty for a minute. 

One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is psychology, and very specific, darker facets of the boys I’d never really taken the time to dig into before, and through them, some of my own issues. Prey was a really weird twisted adventure into Soulless Sam and the way his brain worked. Set Yourself On Fire was about what I assume was the darkest time in Sam’s life, and it ended up being about my own depression and addiction issues. Quitting, also about addiction, and the way we perceive ourselves and hold onto patterns. Sharp Edges was about a personal headcanon I have about Sam, which is that he’s a very reluctant sadist who feels guilty about what he needs, but it ended up being just as much about the general psychology of BDSM and kink and the ways we hide from other people. When I stopped looking at the Winchesters as romantic leads, I found a whole lot of interesting material for other stories. 

Crossovers have been a ton of fun. I realized I imagine crossovers in my head all the time: what would these two have to say to each other, what do they have in common, wouldn’t it be funny if Valkyrie from the MCU met Gail from Sin City (“My warrior woman. My Valkyrie.”) or if Buffy and Dean had a pissing contest about who could sacrifice themselves the most. Again, there’s SO little overlap of fandoms for some of my favorite characters (see also: the Sam Winchester/Frank Iero fic) but I’ve just stopped caring (see #3 above) because they are so entertaining for me to write. Take a couple cool characters! Smush em together and see what happens! It’s like a chemistry experiment. Let’s see what explodes. 

And then there’s Fluff Friday. I’ve always had a tendency to put a lot of pressure on myself and to make everything Deep and Meaningful and Important, but I’ve realized that tropes exist because people fuckin love them, and I fuckin love em, and why the fuck not write a millionth “there was only one bed” fic, because I always love reading those. I’ve been allowing myself space to just do whatever the fuck makes me happy, and I’ve been taking requests because it’s also nice to make other people happy sometimes too. Even if there isn’t a real plot, even if it’s just 300 words where nothing really happens… those little moments can make someone smile. Like I said, it’s 2020. We all need some fuckin smiles. 

Tl;dr version: I stopped putting pressure on myself, I stopped worrying about notes, and I started writing the things that interest me. I’m having so much more fun writing these days. 10/10 would recommend defenestrating your remaining fucks.  

Thank you for still reading, and for noticing the change, and for sticking with me and my unpredictable brain. Your friendship is one of the best things that’s come out of this whole fandom deal.