i'm 80% haunted

Riz // he/they // 💚🤍🩶🖤 // icon by behindxa

[lesbiansforboromir]

You actually cannot skip to being good at a creative endeavour that you haven't put much practice into. You cannot trick your way out of the 'knows that your work is not what you want it to be but don't know how to improve it' stage by planning or reading or talking about it really really hard. At some point you just have to craft through it until your brain finds it's own unique way back to the 'everything I make slaps' stage and be prepared to start the cycle all over again. You just have to make that project you're excited about slightly less good than you want it to be. (Says this standing in a pool of blood and covered in blood and also coughing up a little blood)

[lesbiansforboromir]

everyone stop reblogging this I hate to be reminded of my own good advice

[chimaerakitten]

So we all talk about being in fandoms for things that are charmingly bad, and being able to acknowledge that they’re charmingly bad. But of course some people are in fandoms for things that are Actually Amazing. There are people out there who write fanfiction for The Best Science Fiction Novel Of The Twentieth Century. Or who draw fanart exclusively of The Best Movie of All Time. And there are even more people who are in fandoms for things that are Actually Pretty Good, which is not quite amazing but is closer to it than to Charmingly Bad.

And sometimes, you have a string of fandoms that are Actually Pretty Good. And the danger of this—the very great danger—is that when you have a string of Actually Pretty Good and even Actually Amazing obsessions, you start to believe that maybe you have taste. Perhaps you are now immune to the indignities of losing it over something mostly bad.

And then it is shattering to discover that no, bad things can still stick a fork in your brain. 😔

[chimaerakitten]

So I understand why the “transformative fandom gathers around things that are not good because there being a problem makes people desire to fix it” model is popular. I even agree that it’s accurate in many if not most cases. However it is not what this post is about. Plenty of people do transformative and creative fandom activities for things that are very, very good. Simplified models do not encompass everything.

And frankly, it’s starting to really get on my nerves when people read “I think this thing is good. I wouldn’t change a thing about it and frankly I don’t even think there should be more canon added to it, but I am still going to write thousands of words of fic, make a cosplay, and draw fanart” and then completely misunderstand and respond with “yes I agree—I like things that are good too. But I never feel the transformative/creative fandom instinct for them because they are too good.”

Some people do not feel it. Other people do. Stop misreading me to avoid having to adjust your mental model of how fandom works.

[blessphemy]

one of the ways a Canon work can be fandom bait is by missing something that fans want to fix, i.e. "it's bad", but i think this is only one way out of multiple that something can be fandom bait.

compelling worldbuilding (invites interaction with the setting)

interesting gimmick (see: daemons, drift compatibility. subcategory of compelling worldbuilding)

shipping bait (duh)

original character bait (in-universe categories/factions and design elements that make it fun for people to create their own characters)

compelling narrative (invites interaction and tweaks to the storyline: AUs and fixits and so on)

basically anything that invites interaction and recombination. but fandom also has a sort of multiplying effect: the larger the interactive audience of fandom is, the more likely it is to generate ideas and works that draw in more participants. so:

network effect (the larger the established fandom, the more likely it has subfandoms and infrastructure that appeals to niche audiences)

[chimaerakitten]

Yes this exactly, thank you bless.

Things that have space to play in are fandom bait, but space to play in does not equal holes.

[somepomegranatetea]

she's platonic about it but in my opinion, stratt 100% treats grace as her dead wife. she keeps a tacky fox trinket in her coat pocket. there's a framed photo of him in her study . he's grinning goofily in it (bc he's a dork). new guy like: is that her husband? / no, dumbass, it's dr. ryland grace, 1/3 of the hail mary mission. / oh, fuck. were they... ? / yeah, it's unclear. black-and-white montages of grace messing around in high-level meetings play every time stratt contemplates committing more environmental crimes. she looks up at the night sky and vaguely wonders if he's enjoying his space ramen. that's her dead wife. she killed him.

[hybbat]

It's true, if Grace did have a partner or children or any other family Stratt absolutely would have used those people as a reason for Grace to go. She would have gone harder into how people would die if he didn't. Her only goal was to get him on that spacecraft by any means necessary.

But that's kinda the point, isn't it? It's not that Grace had no one at home was her base logic for why she picked him to go to space. Grace was going to space and she needed to make a logical argument. And the argument she chose was "you don't have family, therefore you have no reason to not go."

Because that's what matters, that's the main thing that would stop someone, surely. Grace is a charismatic guy who made several friends even with her in his time working there. Grace has multiple years of students and a school worth of staff who know him, he has neighbours and friends and a community he participates in. He has a career and hobbies and a home and possessions. But none of those matter enough to stop someone from going to space. They can just up end his life and move him to a remote base far from home where he isn't allowed to talk to anyone he used to know, isn't allowed to go anywhere, it's no big deal to send him a bit further.

He didn't have any relationships important enough in the eyes of their society for it to have legal ties that could complicate things, and that's what mattered. A social construct so deeply rooted in their society that those relationships are written in legal contracts and government papers, those are the ones that are designated to matter. They matter so much that certain rights are withheld from anyone outside those relationships. Grace could be as happy as a clam but as far as any government and person living in the society formed by that government is concerned he was a lonely man with no reason to not sacrifice himself, and so that becomes the pitch.

The pitch could have been anything, but what it was is based in a heteronormative amatonormative understanding of how people and society should work. And it doesn't matter whether Grace was aspec at that point, what matters is he didn't meet the standards for a person who has sufficiently participated in society, and should thus when made aware be willing to rectify this at the cost of his life.

It just so happens that an aroace person who inherently has a complex relationship with these systems by their nature is painfully familiar with that experience.

[aromanticofficial]

official aromantic analysis

[boyswillbeboxes]

So I've been playing Tomodachi Life

[thedreammweaver]

We need an alternative to doesthedogdie cause they’ve started fucking paywalling warnings that include timestamps for triggering moments.

[thedreammweaver]

Like what the fuck

[autisticharrywells]

I just checked and

Need to read about trigger warnings? Please click the whimsical dog icon for more information!

I recommend Unconsenting Media. Not as comprehensive as DoesTheDogDie, but if sexual assault is a trigger for you, it’s a good resource

[troglobite]

rbing again real quick--i and other(s?) have noted in other rbs that this is almost never done. it's for very few properties, and it's only for timestamped warnings that are done in-house, not by users.

there are still timestamps available for warnings on those same triggers for those same properties. just bc there's a paywall on something doesn't mean other comments and timestamps can't be posted or read for free on that property or that trigger.

see here:

i don't have an account and haven't paid for anything on the site, so all of those comments are what i'm seeing for free.

i had to search and search to find anything that had paywalls, and had to resort to looking at The Substance, as referenced here. i've been using the site regularly since the op posted and have never organically encountered a paywall on anything, including on very popular properties.

i don't see any reason to stop using the site--everything is still available for free. they just have added another way for some ppl to choose to pay some $ (in addition to ads), since this is a completely free service, and no website is free to maintain.

as an example, someone with the money could pay to see the timestamps, and then leave a free comment with the same timestamps for others if they wanted to.

[sarith-kzekarit]

I've seen this post on my dash a few times now and I want to boost this specific addition. I've emailed the owner of the site to get clarification on this, and I was told the motivation behind this. He wanted to start paying some people to memorize all 200+ triggers on the site, sit down and watch popular movies/shows to thoroughly analyze whenever any trigger pops up, and note down timestamps and details of them. Ads unfortunately do not cover this (they probably only cover the site's base upkeep), so the subscription service is specifically to pay these people. Community comments have never been paywalled and are still accessible.

He thanked me for my feedback when I expressed confusion and concern about the paywalled comments being mixed in with the free comments, and has since updated the site to make them clearly distinct, along with a preview of what the paid comments look like:

He was very transparent about it all and very kind. He also said this was his mistake and is trying to clear it up. Please continue to use DoesTheDogDie.com, it is an excellent resource and there is nothing else like it!

[earhartsease]

artist: Vasil Woodland

[thememedaddy]

[shadowsong26x]

image description: a tweet from Jon Bois [checkmark] (@ jon_bois)

level 1 idiot shit is texting a link to myself because i don't know an easier way to get it from my computer to my phone. level 44 idiot shit is hearing my phone buzz 1.5 seconds later and going "oh who's that"

[natalieironside]

Mad At You Island is where the events of William Shakespeare's The Tempest take place

[ozempicofficial]

[martyreddie]

it's literally the evilest thing in the world to finally have time to write but then be tired. like wow you're telling me these two hours before going to bed are completely free but my brain is just Not Feeling It? fuck off

[evelynmooreartt]

"A Thread of Stillness"

One of my three latest paintings from a connected series, available on my website

Each piece feels like part of the same quiet passage, tied together by light, water, atmosphere, and a subtle sense of transition.

Oil on canvas, 18x14" #oilpainting #art #artlovers #sunset #paintingprocess

[askclint]

MONGO IS APPALLED

(Art by Layna of Lund, Discord)

[paperplateprose]

not now kitten. daddy's realizing that the scene he invested 1000 words into could be significantly improved but only if he started over from scratch

[out-of-context-tng]

[atomiccollectionanchorme]

Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 3 Episode 2 "The Ensigns of Command"

[mossdftba]

[Image descriptions: 3 screencaps of Data, each with 1 sentence of speech. He says: Words are all we have been using. Humans seem to take much stronger notice of actions. I require a phaser. End IDs.]

[maniakminis]

quit your job

join my band of mercenaries

[notactuallyherefor]

How's the dental?

[maniakminis]

you can have all the teeth you can carry

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m kinda surprised that nalbinding isn’t as popular as crochet and knitting tbh because it has an even lower barrier of entry tools wise and unlike crochet and knitting it makes fabric that you can cut.

I guess it’s because it’s slower or something.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Nalbinding aka needle binding is when you use yarn and a big sewing needle to make fabric btw

It also has a lot of different kinds of stitches you can do that make different densities of fabric.

Some people even make rugs.

[thewolfwaitsbelow]

I feel like part of it might be casual people are generally aware of the existence of crochet and knitting, even if they don’t know very much about either, but have never heard of nalbinding

[what-even-is-thiss]

Yeah I hadn’t heard of it until recently and I ordered a big bone needle for myself to try it out and that should be arriving soon.

I was surprised that I’d never heard of it though. It’s older than knitting and crocheting and even though it’s been done all over the world it’s super relevant to Nordic culture and my grandmother and I are both into keeping in touch with our roots a bit so I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.

It seems like the sort of thing that would be popular even if not as popular as crocheting and knitting, considering the low barrier of entry.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You also don’t need a bunch of different sized needles for nalbinding or whatever. The size of the stitch is controlled either completely freehand or by pulling it against one of your fingers. Most people who have a lot of nalbinding needles seem to either have tried out wood, bone, and metal ones to see which kind they liked or they enjoy carving wood or bone and like making their own needles as an extra hobby.

It’s also a lot easier to freehand and adjust as you go than crochet or knitting and you mostly go by inches instead of rows and number of stitches so a large number of accessories like stitch markers or whatever isn’t really necessary.

Maybe the lack of accessories also makes it unpopular idk. People do like collecting things in their nests.

[the-color-of-sound-is-space]

I've been wanting to do so, I cannot find anyone who can teach me, and any books I can find on it are Ass in the Visual Learning department. Otherwise I'd be making the hell outta some nalbinded fabric

[what-even-is-thiss]

I found this channel by a nice man who makes up close tutorials

Happy Needlebinding

I create videos on YouTube to learn people how to needlebind using two fingers and your thumb. Needlebinding helps people to relax, relieve

[what-even-is-thiss]

I thought this would be kind of a niche post to make but I was quickly reminded that I’m on tumblr, the website full of gay people with one billion hobbies.