So it has come to this

(don't fall asleep to dream) -+- an adult -+- 18+ only pls and thank you

[kakyoinryoko]

i think if you showed minecraft or fortnite to a little medieval peasant boy he would probably start writing parodies of church hymns. it’s human nature

[kakyoinryoko]

this has rendered me speechless

[carpenter-synth]

Filk music!

[peg-the-empire]

shoutout to everyone in small fandoms who takes a character with one minute of screentime and decides to build an entire universe around them. to the oc creators, the rarepair shippers, the canon-divergence enthusiasts and the people who can’t stop asking “but what if?” and then proceed to spend 50k words answering their own question.

i genuinely think your joy is contagious. fandoms grow because people see someone having fun and think, “wait, i want to play too.” <3

[gorbling]

Im enjoying the longevity of tumblrs recontextualization style of humor. a seemingly innocuous post followed by like "posts that a gnome would make" or like "are you a phone"

[gorbling]

[hapalopus]

[hapalopus]

More from the notes:

[vexwerewolf]

I love this post

[karifaevt]

The horse thinks as it scratches an itch

[fudanshidaily]

They really didn't have to strain themselves with the writing, did they? Someone literally just looked at what actually happened and went "yeah let's turn this into a standard magical boys anime episode".

AND IT FUCKIN' WORKS. 🤣

[carpenter-synth]

HA

[berkeleygirl3]

[clytemnestraaa]

one of my creative writing professors once said that to evaluate a work as good or not, first you ask what the work is attempting to do, and then you evaluate how well it does it. and this is how to judge everything from critical essays to romance novels to snack packaging to theory tracts.

[bunniboiz]

"it's ok to show (x) in fiction as long as the bad guy gets punished!" the bad guy doesn't have to get punished. in fact the bad guy can win altogether. the bad guy can entirely get away with it. hope this helps

[bunniboiz]

and this part might make some people's head explode but: characters can be written to forgive things you personally wouldn't ever forgive. not everything is written as what you'd perceive to be the right choice. not everything is a self-insert & protagonists don't have to be relatable.

[carpenter-synth]

funny how the people in real life who get away with things are the same people who benefit from the idea that 'stories where good doesn't win and the bad guys get away with it are bad for you'

after all (so it goes, in some aspect or other:), what they're doing can't be so bad, and if it is, isn't it maybe the fault of that social group they're funding hate against? And clearly the stories are bad, that's the cause, surely. If nobody wrote about it nobody would ever want to do that! And (the sinister part of that idea is:) it's not like the real world could be that way, right? Anyone who wants things to change IRL or come to justice is just causing trouble and being a creep... </s>

[luna-azzurra]

Your character doesn't need to be likeable. They need to be legible. The reader needs to understand every decision they make even when it's wrong, even when it's ugly, even when they want to shake them. Likeable is easy and forgettable. Legible is what makes someone stay with you for years. Make the logic of every bad choice visible. The reader doesn't have to agree with it. They just have to follow it.

[astercontrol]

first two sentences i was like "ok this is an interesting tip for conlang alphabet creation, but what are the criteria for characters being legible when you're still inventing the system for reading them"

And then i was like "oh that kind of 'characters'. Ok this makes some sense, even though it's not what 'legible' would usually mean to me"

And then i was like "also... I think the reader doesn't necessarily have to know THE reason why a character does a thing, but it should be at least possible to theorize potential reasons"

And then I remembered my main OC is named after the asterisk, for multiple reasons, but partly because in programming it's a wildcard character that can mean anything

...And then things all fit together VERY pleasantly.

[stillnotmollified]

some of you weren’t around for the fan fiction dot net purge of 2002 (when they banned explicit content and mass-deleted thousands of fics) and the livejournal purge of 2007 (when they deleted hundreds of blogs, disproportionately targeting queer & kink content) and it shows

this kind of policing is why ao3 was created

remember, kids, the three laws of fandom are:

- don’t like; don’t read

- your kink is not my kink

- ship and let ship

[rembrandtswife]

your kink is not my kink *but your kink is okay* don't forget that part

[pearlo]

there’s very few things that drive me up the wall in fandom as much as this weird new assumption that fandom is primarily a space for younger people that older folks are only accepted into in a trial basis if they promise to centralize and accommodate younger fans, and further, anything else is creepy and predatory. IT’S OKAY FOR ADULTS TO PRODUCE CONTENT FOR OTHER ADULTS.

[deputychairman]

if I have to read “women in their 30s” used as an insult one more time I swear I’ll - step away from that user and just hang out with the other grownups who consistently create good content because I’m also an adult and too busy comparing car insurance to fight with teenagers on the internet, but goddAMMIT I’ll be annoyed

[teaboot]

I’ve been in this hole since yall lil shits were three apples tall and I’ll die in this hole too

[astercontrol]

living in a time like now, when it seems like the "intended age range" of any fiction is determined primarily by the age of its protagonists... it's strange to watch and read older media from times when that wasn't the case.

Yes, Star Trek TOS was marketed largely at children. Yes so was Tron (1982). Yes, freakin' Amelia Bedelia was a grown woman with a job.

Kids' media used to be defined by subject matter, not who it was about. Protagonists used to be allowed to not be obviously similar in any way to the audience expected to enjoy them.

I'm watching Automan now, and from the viewpoint of the present day it feels at once "so fundamentally silly that it can't possibly have been intended for audiences more mature than 9," but also "so full of Adult Situations that it can't possibly be intended for anyone below the upper teens."

Really was a hell of a different time.

[delinquentbookworm]

one time I went over to a friend's house and their housemate was making paper in the living room, and we saw this big tub full of water they were using to dissolve old scrap paper into a slurry, and everyone was immediately like "oh, you need scrap paper?" and started turning out their jacket pockets and producing expired coupons and bus tickets and crumpled receipts and old shopping lists and whatever else they'd been carrying round with them for no good reason, and passing it all to the paper-making housemate to make sure it was suitable before it got torn up and dropped into the tub, while people took turns stirring the slurry with a big wooden stick. it was strangely ritualistic, like presenting an offering to some kind of temple elder for inspection before placing it in a watery shrine to be devoured and reformed. pulp for the pulp god.

[natalieironside]

Fun beauty tip for all us #girls:

Identify that which would deny you your autonomy or seeks to steer the course of your destiny for you and attack it. Attack it relentlessly and without pity.

[carpenter-synth]

this. strongly felt since I was very small. An ad wants your money and attention. It acts like it can tell you what you want or think or need. It acts like it matters more than you. bite it. An authority wants your agency. Keep it despite their arguments that obedience is patriotism/respect. Ignore that algorithm. Save those files locally. Be aware of your lack of data privacy. Also strongly felt since I was very small: You are sentient: do not allow someone to deny you your sentient agency on the rationale that a gender concept has decided it for you. (all of which is frankly gender agnostic, and important for everybody.)

[dongstomper-deactivated20161230]

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 2 ANNOUNCED

THE ALBATROSS IS BACK………. AND HES FUCKING PISSED

[carpenter-synth]

Rime 2: 2 Bird 2 Boat

[the-forest-library]

kill the imposter syndrome in your head because not only is there someone out there doing it worse than you, they’re also using chat gpt to do it

[the-forest-library]

I love this post so much because each day my notes are filled with people embracing their creativity and humanity and making things! creating art! writing!

also, @sonnetseven - yes - life is to be lived and enjoyed!

[creekfiend]

many women are excited to get old and weird, but i have great news that it's fully possible to become weird now, before you get old. just imagine the heights of weirdness you will be able to reach in fifty years if you get started now. that's what I think

[alagaisia]

Hey. Why isn’t the moon landing a national holiday in the US. Isn’t that fucked up? Does anyone else think that’s absurd?

[alagaisia]

It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!

[alagaisia]

It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.

[watermelon-converse]

Hey. Hey. Tumblr. Ides of March ppl. We can do this

[emi--rose]

Hell yeah moon holiday

[hello-delicious-tea]

Ooh coming up we should celebrate

[ariaste]

PITCH: We call it Moon Day, and then every 7 years when it falls on a Monday, that's an even BIGGER deal and we call that Moon Day Monday and go absolutely apeshit about it (the next Moon Day Monday is in 2026 so we have a couple trial runs first)

[sarostheghostcat]

MOON DAY MOON DAY MOON DAY

[wafflebloggies]

moon day is 20th July!!!

[silly-jellyghoty]

Scheduling this a day earlier to remind you all and myself about the Moon Day tomorow!

[kedreeva]

I scheduled this in 2025 to give you all a week to make Moon Day Monday preparations! I think I will order a little rocket cake or bake some moon phase cookies!

[dduane]

It's coming, cousins. ...This could be as big as March 15th if we made it that way...

[carpenter-synth]

I could. sing filk for moon day?

there's a lot of it!