Cecilia Tan • Writer/Editor/Activist

Author of passionate fiction, lover of words.

[ceciliatan]

Huh, does Tumblr just delete blogs?

So, about a week ago I created a blog for the Wanton Weekly newsletter, to repost the content there instead of in my own Tumblr. Today I actually posted a first post to it. Then I went to reblog it... and the blog was gone. "GHOST BLOG" it tells me. What gives? No message, no indication it broke TOS or anything...?

[ceciliatan]

Do not use AI

Do not use AI

[ifdragonscouldtalk]

Could yall stop shooting each other outside my window im trying to masturbate

[ifdragonscouldtalk]

So this was actually the sound of my car getting stolen

[marlinspirkhall]

investing at 10 notes

[copperbadge]

You can't leave this in the notes, guys.

[four-get-me-not]

Stained glass ao3 logo :P

[ceciliatan]

Okay, this is the story of Disney, my Dad, and the Very Bisexual T-Shirt.

Between Pride being yesterday, and Father’s Day being today, I thought I’d tell you a story today of what Being Queer in the Nineties was like, and also (another) story about Dad.

To be clear, being queer in the 1990s was definitely not always a joy. But in this case… well, you’ll see.

When I was in my early 20s, my parents decided to take me and my brother on a cruise vacation. This was exciting for a number of reasons, not least because my parents were awesome to hang out with. It was always fun to spend time with them and my brother, who was then 16 and had at that point gotten into the Grateful Dead. (Jerry Garcia was still alive, then.)

If you’re new here, my Dad was a Chinese-filipino immigrant who came to the States to be a doctor (and send money home to support his 9 younger siblings). Mom, meanwhile, was born in rural upstate New York, spent her teens in Florida, and then moved to NYC after college. Mom was the one who raised my brother and me to be the progressive humanists we are, while Dad often seemed a little bit baffled by “American” attitudes.

Also, it was our first time on a cruise ship.

Everything my brother and I knew about cruises at that point we had learned from watching The Love Boat. We’d spend 4 days on a ship nicknamed “The Big Red Boat,” then 3 days in Disney World. (This was before Disney started their own cruise line.)

We didn’t know that on a cruise ship they feed you 12 times a day. Nor that it would be so much like summer camp, with social activities making you mingle with the other campers, I mean, cruisers. The four of us went to the Welcome Buffet. A couple there were wearing matching T-shirts that said “Ask Me About My Schnauzer.” (Actually I don’t remember which breed of dog was on the shirt, but let’s pretend I did.)

My father was enchanted by this. “What a smart idea! Those people wear a shirt looking for other people who like schnauzers, too! They show who they are. It’s brilliant.” Dad plucked at my brother’s tie-dyed shirt sleeve. “You must meet other Deader Headers when you wear this one!” (sic)

My brother and I agreed it was brilliant, and we were amused that Dad seemed to think wearing T-shirts that declared something about one’s self was a new idea…? As I mentioned, Dad was often a bit out of synch with American culture, but he mostly didn’t sweat it.

Anyway. Fast forward to the Disney part of the vacation. The package deal had us in some hotel off-property and Dad got up early in the morning to play golf somewhere. (Dad was obsessed with golf.) My brother and I were sharing a room. After sleeping in a bit, we got dressed to go out for breakfast with my mother.

I put on a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it, with the overlapping pink-purple-blue triangle on it…

“Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt,” my brother said.

“Why?” I replied. “Doesn’t he know?” My brother shrugged.

My freshman year at college, I had come out as bi to my mother very explicitly because Mom was the parent we actually TALKED to. But we expected Dad to pick stuff up by osmosis, I guess…? He was really not a talker.

Mom also took one look at me and said, “Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt.” I again replied, “Why? Doesn’t he know?” She also shrugged, and slightly changed the subject. “Do you think it’s a good idea to wear that to breakfast?”

“Mom, homophobic gangs are not roaming the IHOP at 10 in the morning.”

Well, point of fact, there was a non-zero chance we might run into some homophobic attitudes, but I wasn’t actively concerned for our safety. And I was confident my family would quickly be convinced it was a good idea to wear it. Because that T-shirt was like a “cheat code” to get a top-notch Disney experience.

At the time, the Disney corporation was not openly supportive of LGBTQ rights. A few years earlier (1991), self-organizing park-goers had started having unofficial “Gay Days” in Orlando and Anaheim, but Disney didn’t have an official “Pride Nite” until 2023 (if you’re counting, that’s 32 years later). At the time of our story, 1993, no one at Disney was officially “out,” but many many MANY queerfolk worked there.

To quote a friend who had worked at the Magic Kingdom: “Every ‘theater gay’ in Florida ends up working for The Mouse.” The word was, wear your rainbow rings or other Pride-related festoonments. Okay, granted, rainbow rings would have been more subtle. I had chosen a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it in large letters. I was not subtle. Maybe it would backfire.

But especially after the whole speech Dad gave about how brilliant an idea it was to wear T-shirts so you could find people like you? It seemed the perfect time to wear it.

Now, one of the things that is magical about Disney is they work so damn hard to make you—yes, you—feel like you are special, like everything is being done especially for you. Which is amazing considering that they create that experience for 48 million people a year in Orlando alone.

But my experience of going as a “marked queer” in 1993? Unmatched. Cheat code unlocked. We would be in line for a restaurant with an hour-long wait. And then a cast member would waltz up to us and beckon us over… and tell me a table for 4 had magically appeared for us.

Magically, I tell you.

Or we would be lining up to see a parade. And a cast member would sidle over and say, hey, are you interested in a better view? And take us to a roped off area.

This happened over and over that day.

Eventually my brother was like, “this is because of your shirt, isn’t it?” Yep. It was solidarity, it was fraternity. Because taking care of each other was the only way for queerfolk to make up for the times in life when we got treated worse.

Dad never did have that conniption, by the way.

He never said a word. But as I mentioned, Dad was not a talker. It’s possible he was oblivious and missed the whole thing. But Dad could also pretend to be oblivious when he felt nothing needed to be said. Maybe we didn’t give him enough credit? Years later he would tell me he was fine with it. At the time, we just let it ride.

I do not miss the days when queers had to operate in stealth to make each other’s lives better. What I know is if the right wing worldwide rolls back what rights we’ve clawed for ourselves, we will always be in the business of taking care of each other.

Happy Pride everyone, and take care of each other out there.

[ceciliatan]

I'm testing what happens if I try to move a post from the Wanton Weekly over to Tumblr.

WW for lucky Friday the 13th!

Lucky because we have some great spicy fiction in this week's haul!

June 13, 2025

Welcome to this week’s WANTON WEEKLY! A reader asked me recently why I describe what we publish here as “spicy” — which sounds rather euphemistic compared to the more direct descriptions we use on Bluesky, for example. The truth is that I’ve been strongly advised that if we use language that is too direct, the newsletter is more likely to get filtered as spaam.

Of course, the descriptions of the individual stories have plenty of direct language in them, so maybe my efforts at self-censorship are for naught…? So far, though, all but one of our missives have landed in my regular inbox instead of the spaaaaam box, so I guess I’ll keep it up.

Please share this newsletter with a friend! Please forward it to someone who would appreciate it!

Writers, remember to submit your content links here each week: https://forms.gle/Eu2PfvfbcmimDJnj8

Readers, got a recommendation of some spicy fiction for your fellow readers of the Wanton Weekly? Please email us at [email protected] with a link and why you recommend it, and we might feature reader recs in a future newsletter!

FICTION

“The Beast” by Cecilia Tan. Standalone/Short StoryFree. Het, monster-f*cking, fantasy, a bit of bondageLink: https://www.theoreads.com/story/231147be-acc4-4f6a-8c63-b7071218b094/view

You just can't imagine what it's like to lie there in anticipation of the beast, your legs tied apart so wide you're at the edge of pain, waiting and wondering whether today you'll feel his claw or teeth or bone.

Each time I am given to the beast, a monk ties the ropes, his hood hiding his face, so most of what I know him by is his hands. They say if I move too much, the beast might eat me.

“Beach House Views: Chapter 4” by Ruan Willow. Serial fiction chapterPaywalled. Hetero “baby-making spree”Link: https://www.theoreads.com/story/b0325410-adb4-4ebe-ab7b-2ddaadb13282/view

Juniper and Bridge find their dream house. It's on the beach! The house is eerily perfect, and the couple can't help but be drawn to its charm and the allure of its famous previous owner. The house seems to be the perfect place for them to start a new chapter in their lives and maybe make a top-notch nursery for that baby they've so desperately been trying for. During their tour, Juniper finds a mysterious object in the kitchen, a hidden key in an odd place, hinting that there may be more to this fantasy home than meets the eye.

After they settle in to the house, mysteries pop up, but they dismiss them as meaningless, that is until they can't deny something odd, and devious, could be going on with the house. They continue to enjoy each other though, on their baby making breeding spree, trying out every room in their quest to create new life. When things start to go south, they find the beach views they didn't want, and the danger of the mysterious occurrences becomes villainous.

“Styrax the Scarred: Ch2: A Restrained Sadist [1]” by Lauren P. Burka. Serial fiction chapterPaywalled. Gay, BDSM, fantasyLink: https://www.patreon.com/posts/p1-welcome-ch2-1-130632519

The captain burned with unspent desire. He had felt so cool on the outside, so calm and controlled. But that control had slipped in a moment of intimacy, and the captain’s exposed insides had been raw with need. Styrax had sensed it while healing him. The captain had crew who would serve him in bed, so if he was denying himself, he must have a reason. The captain wanted something—or someone—he couldn’t have, and denied himself any lesser pleasure.

“Europa University: Admissions, Chapter 1.12: Out of Reach (Cylus)” by Cori Catchthorne. Serial fiction chapterFree.Link: https://www.coricatchthorne.com/admissions-1-12-out-of-reach-cylus/

Chapter 1.12: In which Cylie prepares for a second date, remembers an encounter from his past, and receives an unexpected message. Note: This post marks the end of Act 1; Act 2 will begin in August! We're in a "heat hiatus", (and will be for the first couple chapters of Act 2 as well) but I figured I'd keep submitting to WW for anyone who's been following along, since the Sexy Times will definitely be back (and hornier than ever)!

The Double-Edged Bomb” by Lauren P. Burka. Standalone/Short StoryFree. Gay, superheroLink: https://www.theoreads.com/story/2c60712e-59d3-43c1-a214-a6cefeb917c2/view

In a grim, dystopian future that could be right around the corner, a gay man teaches his superhero lover what it means to be human.

Veesta” by Eskay Kabba. Standalone/ShortPaywalled. KeywordsLink: https://www.theoreads.com/story/7ff80218-234b-4b53-88c7-09568e7e8632/view

(Veesta, a married Muslim woman, explores her desires for women.) She stared at the drop ceiling in her room and her left hand moved to her inner thigh. It traced the stitching of her panties. Veesta paused, then gave herself permission to slide an index finger underneath it. Her lips parted in a sigh as she felt the stickiness inside of her. She touched her engorged...

AUDIO/PODCAST

“Sex on the Beach, Excerpt from The Siren Who Couldn't Sing, An Open Door Erotic Romantasy Tale” by Ruan Willow. Fictiom PodcastFree. Het, romantasyLink: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1599808/episodes/17242832

Gabriella finally found what she was looking for. As a fairy-siren-human, she was with the love of her life, a human male named Leif. Gabriella and Leif settled into a happy life, but everything changes when Gabriella is summoned back to the sea. The siren in her makes her ocean bound journey smooth, that is until an unseen force starts messing with the couple and splits them up. While they feel like powerless pawns in a chess game as their hearts and bodies get wrenched from each other, all they want is their happily ever after, if only the one in power will allow that to happen.

Thanks for reading. Stay wanton! Any suggestions, email us at  [email protected].

[leclercari]

i need everyone to hear the story of colman domingo meeting his husband bc it's just the most beautiful thing i've ever heard

[bisexualshakespeare]

Audio for Interview on Graham Norton audio:

You're in Berkley, California in 2005 and you're minding your business going into a Walgreens. Which is like a Boots here. So I'm going in there cause it's a Sunday night. Just-I live in New York, I go in there to get a mask, a facial mask.

So I'm walking in and I see someone walking out, has beautiful hair down to here, (gestures below the shoulder) lip piercing, beautiful, beautiful. I see this guy and we look at each other and I'm like 'oh my god' and I'm on the phone and I come outside. We look at each other and he's talking to this young woman, and she seems to be angry at something. So its a lot of like- *mimes yelling* and he's looking at me and she's all *mimes anger*

And I'm like, what's going? So I'm like ok let me get off the phone. I get off the phone, they walk off down the street. But he keeps looking back and I wave, but he just keeps going. And then I'm just dumbfounded and I end up in a Blockbuster across the street, and I don't even know what I'm doing I decide to look at my watch and it's 8:03. And I look outside, I think is he here? I think maybe I'll come back next Sunday and he'll be here. I'm that kind of hopeless romantic.

Cut to three days later, I'm trying to buy a used computer and I'm just scanning craigslist. They have that over here right? I'm scanning craiglist. So I thought, maybe I'll place one of those Missed Connections ads. I wonder if they work, cause I would read them on the subway. I go to page 2 of them as I'm reading and I see: 'saw you outside of Walgreens - Berkley. He placed an ad for me two hours before.

Sterling K Brown: Come on, brah.

I jumped up I'm like, are you kidding me? That's me. He described me with my faux hawk, it was 2005. *laughing* And I was like, get out of here. So we met up three days later. We had our first date. I was trying to be a good boy and go home. He said, can you stay over? I said sure but let's just cuddle. We cuddled. I thought he was asleep. Four o'clock in the morning, I couldn't sleep and I say to him, "I think I love you and you're about the change my life." And we've been together almost nineteen years now.

Sterling K Brown hollers. "Yooo! Are you serious? Oh my god!"

The crowd cheers. Graham and the other panelists make similar amazed sounds. /end]

[moniquill]

This is a legitimate and damaging cultural shift for all involved parties and it needs to be addressed.

[maria-scariotes]

And that's why most true crime cases of the 70s 80s are children dissapearing. Also in those same decades the average age of first drinking and smoking was 12, 13. Why would that be,I guess?

Guys you are not gonna put a child into the world and just let it do anything it wants and you will have no work to do and not have to watch over them. Come on

The last tweet is literally saying people are having less kids cuz they can't neglect them anymore and they have to, gasp, take care of their kids.

[watermelinoe]

i think the idea here is that neighborhoods used to be safer and you could reasonably expect a gaggle of kids to be able to keep track of each other, and to be able to trust that your kid could go to someone else's house if they needed help, and the loss of this sense of community is the issue that needs addressing

but you're right that whenever you seem to look at older missing child cases, especially from the 60s or thereabouts, it's like a five year old who was sent to get her brother from the park in the evening, or an eight year old skipping school and just wandering around town alone and going missing, so i think there is some survivorship bias and nostalgic idealism as well

but it should be safe to let your kids play outside and the fact that it's not is definitely a societal failure (and ofc the reason it's not is largely bc of male predators although women will snatch babies)

u also make a good point abt that last tweet lol like i think it touches on a good point abt mothers needing a village, needing a support net, bc now they're more isolated than ever but the truth is that when women are given the freedom of choice they choose to have less kids and any other argument can come across as again idealizing this time when women were pressured or forced to have more children

[moniquill]

Here's the thing: It is not, in fact, unsafe to let kids play outside. There is less violent crime now that there has ever been since we started measuring it: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/24/what-the-data-says-about-crime-in-the-us/

There is not an epidemic of strangers in white vans snatching kids off the street. The person most likely to abduct a child is that child's non-custodial parent: https://childfindofamerica.org/resources/facts-and-stats-missing-children/

This 'danger' is entirely perceptual and enforced by outside authorities.

Cell phones exist now, and kids are more able than ever to have a way to instantly contact help or be tracked if they go missing, but children and their parents are more surveilled than ever:

Mom Arrested for 'Abandoning' Kids in Food Court While She Watched Them from 30 Yards Away

Child services to the rescue.

Legally, What Age Can Kids Play Outside, Unsupervised? - Free-Range Kids

The age that kids start playing — walking, biking, frolicking outside — should be up to the parents. But that’s not always the case. A few y

When it comes to walking to school alone, there's no one-size-fits-all rule. But there are ways to determine if your child is ready.

@maria-scariotes the reason most True Crime stories are abducted kids is not because kids were much more commonly abducted - it's because those are stories that viewers find compelling. Kids are STILL starting to become nicotine dependant at 12-13 - they're just far more likely to be vaping now than smoking cigarettes. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/vaping-is-taking-off-among-younger-children-and-tweens-idUSKBN1YS1EH/

Perpetual supervision is actually very bad for kids:

Help Me Grow MN

Community centres for information on learning and development disabilities

A Doctor Pleads: "Let Kids Play Outside Unsupervised"

This doctor is wants all children to go outside and play. He's asking his state to pass a law allowing kids to play unsupervised.

Why kids need to take more risks: science reveals the benefits of wild, free play

Studies reveal how risky play can benefit child development. But encouraging it can be a challenge for parents.

[ceciliatan]

Okay, this is the story of Disney, my Dad, and the Very Bisexual T-Shirt.

Between Pride being yesterday, and Father’s Day being today, I thought I’d tell you a story today of what Being Queer in the Nineties was like, and also (another) story about Dad.

To be clear, being queer in the 1990s was definitely not always a joy. But in this case… well, you’ll see.

When I was in my early 20s, my parents decided to take me and my brother on a cruise vacation. This was exciting for a number of reasons, not least because my parents were awesome to hang out with. It was always fun to spend time with them and my brother, who was then 16 and had at that point gotten into the Grateful Dead. (Jerry Garcia was still alive, then.)

If you’re new here, my Dad was a Chinese-filipino immigrant who came to the States to be a doctor (and send money home to support his 9 younger siblings). Mom, meanwhile, was born in rural upstate New York, spent her teens in Florida, and then moved to NYC after college. Mom was the one who raised my brother and me to be the progressive humanists we are, while Dad often seemed a little bit baffled by “American” attitudes.

Also, it was our first time on a cruise ship.

Everything my brother and I knew about cruises at that point we had learned from watching The Love Boat. We’d spend 4 days on a ship nicknamed “The Big Red Boat,” then 3 days in Disney World. (This was before Disney started their own cruise line.)

We didn’t know that on a cruise ship they feed you 12 times a day. Nor that it would be so much like summer camp, with social activities making you mingle with the other campers, I mean, cruisers. The four of us went to the Welcome Buffet. A couple there were wearing matching T-shirts that said “Ask Me About My Schnauzer.” (Actually I don’t remember which breed of dog was on the shirt, but let’s pretend I did.)

My father was enchanted by this. “What a smart idea! Those people wear a shirt looking for other people who like schnauzers, too! They show who they are. It’s brilliant.” Dad plucked at my brother’s tie-dyed shirt sleeve. “You must meet other Deader Headers when you wear this one!” (sic)

My brother and I agreed it was brilliant, and we were amused that Dad seemed to think wearing T-shirts that declared something about one’s self was a new idea…? As I mentioned, Dad was often a bit out of synch with American culture, but he mostly didn’t sweat it.

Anyway. Fast forward to the Disney part of the vacation. The package deal had us in some hotel off-property and Dad got up early in the morning to play golf somewhere. (Dad was obsessed with golf.) My brother and I were sharing a room. After sleeping in a bit, we got dressed to go out for breakfast with my mother.

I put on a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it, with the overlapping pink-purple-blue triangle on it…

“Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt,” my brother said.

“Why?” I replied. “Doesn’t he know?” My brother shrugged.

My freshman year at college, I had come out as bi to my mother very explicitly because Mom was the parent we actually TALKED to. But we expected Dad to pick stuff up by osmosis, I guess…? He was really not a talker.

Mom also took one look at me and said, “Dad’s going to have a conniption when he sees that shirt.” I again replied, “Why? Doesn’t he know?” She also shrugged, and slightly changed the subject. “Do you think it’s a good idea to wear that to breakfast?”

“Mom, homophobic gangs are not roaming the IHOP at 10 in the morning.”

Well, point of fact, there was a non-zero chance we might run into some homophobic attitudes, but I wasn’t actively concerned for our safety. And I was confident my family would quickly be convinced it was a good idea to wear it. Because that T-shirt was like a “cheat code” to get a top-notch Disney experience.

At the time, the Disney corporation was not openly supportive of LGBTQ rights. A few years earlier (1991), self-organizing park-goers had started having unofficial “Gay Days” in Orlando and Anaheim, but Disney didn’t have an official “Pride Nite” until 2023 (if you’re counting, that’s 32 years later). At the time of our story, 1993, no one at Disney was officially “out,” but many many MANY queerfolk worked there.

To quote a friend who had worked at the Magic Kingdom: “Every ‘theater gay’ in Florida ends up working for The Mouse.” The word was, wear your rainbow rings or other Pride-related festoonments. Okay, granted, rainbow rings would have been more subtle. I had chosen a shirt that said BISEXUAL PRIDE on it in large letters. I was not subtle. Maybe it would backfire.

But especially after the whole speech Dad gave about how brilliant an idea it was to wear T-shirts so you could find people like you? It seemed the perfect time to wear it.

Now, one of the things that is magical about Disney is they work so damn hard to make you—yes, you—feel like you are special, like everything is being done especially for you. Which is amazing considering that they create that experience for 48 million people a year in Orlando alone.

But my experience of going as a “marked queer” in 1993? Unmatched. Cheat code unlocked. We would be in line for a restaurant with an hour-long wait. And then a cast member would waltz up to us and beckon us over… and tell me a table for 4 had magically appeared for us.

Magically, I tell you.

Or we would be lining up to see a parade. And a cast member would sidle over and say, hey, are you interested in a better view? And take us to a roped off area.

This happened over and over that day.

Eventually my brother was like, “this is because of your shirt, isn’t it?” Yep. It was solidarity, it was fraternity. Because taking care of each other was the only way for queerfolk to make up for the times in life when we got treated worse.

Dad never did have that conniption, by the way.

He never said a word. But as I mentioned, Dad was not a talker. It’s possible he was oblivious and missed the whole thing. But Dad could also pretend to be oblivious when he felt nothing needed to be said. Maybe we didn’t give him enough credit? Years later he would tell me he was fine with it. At the time, we just let it ride.

I do not miss the days when queers had to operate in stealth to make each other’s lives better. What I know is if the right wing worldwide rolls back what rights we’ve clawed for ourselves, we will always be in the business of taking care of each other.

Happy Pride everyone, and take care of each other out there.

[professorspork]

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[ceciliatan]

THIS. And speaking as someone who is both on the "chef" side of the metaphor and the fanfic "for the love" side, when I absolutely LOVED finding the community potluck that was the livejournal fanfic community. Because I didn't start writing just to "make money" -- if the goal was money, writing definitely would not be the first choice -- but to communicate in some way.

Another thing I love about this answer is it points out that the algorithm-driven clout seeking of "content creators" is very much a new thing. In the US-based science fiction/fantasy literary genre, there is a very very longstanding tradition (going back to the 1940s and 1950s) of fans and writers mingling together, and many many fans becoming pros themselves over time. It's a large community that embraces people all along the spectrum from fan to pro and doesn't draw a hard line between them. It's one of the reasons the institution known as Worldcon, flawed as it is, is still so important to us.

[duckprintspress]

Fannish Safety Signs Kickstarter: Now Through May 22nd!

We are over the moon to share that our Fannish Safety Sign Sticker Campaign is now up and running on Kickstarter!! Made with all of creator’s Xianyu Zhou’s fandom love and whimsy, these fun 37 stickers offer warnings and alerts for fannish tropes, character archetypes, memes, and more that one should be on the lookout for. From “Be Alert for Idiots in Love” to “Caution: Dead Dove Do Not Eat,” if you love fandom, you’re sure to find a sticker here that’s perfect for you! Get one sticker, get all 37, mix and match and customize your order however you’d like – the possibilities are endless.

Visit our campaign page now!

Or scroll on to see ALL THE DESIGNS!

All BE ALERT FOR… Stickers:

All CAUTION Stickers:

All THE REQUIRED FOCUS AIDS MUST BE PREPARED… Stickers:

And lastly, our Caution Tape Sticker Sheet:

Ready to back now that you’ve seen a sticker you’ve gotta have? Here’s that Kickstarter link one more time!

And! People who back our Patreon at the $10/month or $25/month level will get one additional sticker as a freebie/bonus when they also back the Kickstarter campaign!

[ceciliatan]

You bet I backed this the second I saw it

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: the stall owner I often order spicy 炸串zhachuan(skewers) from whipped out an impromptu Inner Mongolian grassland dance

[ceciliatan]

This is a Taylor Tomlinson appreciation post

I’ve been meaning to post more about Taylor Tomlinson, the comedian, because holy crow we could all use a laugh these days, but also because she’s had a big bisexual awakening and is out there every night on tour now telling people about it. What a moment to come out, eh? Into this world where they’re trying to put people back in the closet. Her shows in Boston sold out so fast they had to add matinees. And the show is great. Both her openers were great (Sophie Buddle and Zach Noe Towers) too. They do this segment after the main show called Crowd Confessions, where people text in answers to questions like if you grew up religious, what was the craziest rule you had to follow? Or, who was your queer awakening? How did you come out? Etc. There are lots of YouTube videos of these out there if you want a good cathartic laugh. There’s so much queer joy in these stories but also recognizing that we’ve had to grow up and get past so much to be who we are. (Taylor fans please reblog/reply with your faves! Or just send them to me!)

[substellaris]

More fem drarry ✨

I'll probably change Draco's design. I think he's (she's) a very difficult character to draw in general.

[cursed-and-haunted]

I know this is going to make me sound pretensions but I have to get it off my chest. I feel an unimaginable rage when someone posts a photo and is like "this picture looks like a renaissance painting lol" when the photo clearly has the lighting, colors and composition of a baroque or romantic painting. There are differences in these styles and those differences are important and labeling every "classical" looking painting as renaissance is annoying and upsetting to me. And anytime I come across one of those posts I have to put down my phone and go take a walk because they make me so mad

[cursed-and-haunted]

In case you're curious here's what I mean.

Renaissance(distinct lines, stability and the individual man):

Baroque (bold, chaotic, dramatic):

Romantic(romanticize the simple hard working life):

Do you see the difference?

[gabyluvsxena]

this post has re-wired my brain in the best way

[hussyknee]

If I tell you this is a horror dance number it still won't prepare you. That last move was so terrifying even the judge was like "Let go! Let go!" If you told me they're actually possessed I'd believe you.

One of the most perfectly choreographed and executed dances I have ever seen and comes closest to Shobana's original performance in Manichitrathazhu. Incredible!

[eyepool]

@vajrakali

[vajrakali]

@dancewhathouwilt

[versegm]

Btw much as I love to make fun of twitter and reddit's business decisions, I have 0% trust in tumblr's management to not go a similar route so this is your gentle reminder that you should regularly go to your blog settings to export your blog. That's a fancy way of saying you can download a backup of your blog so if everything goes down you'll still have a backup of your posts & convos.

[versegm]

It's gonna come as a surprise to most of you, but if you don't want to do that for whatever reason you're allowed to not reblog this post. I'm not holding a gun to your head here I'm just trying to spread the word for people who do want a backup of their stuff.

[magz]

Also, made this guide for backup Tumblr blogs (ft. export blog method, and python 3 script method):

How To Backup Your Tumblr Blog

Tumblr Backup (Python 3 Script) Index Summary What this does: Things used in this method: How to set up: Setting up Python If you messed it