Sketchy

Art, writing, fanning.

[pawthorn]

10 and 11 for the book asks!

10. Do you have a guilty fav?

…I don’t think so? I’m pretty immune to feeling cringe and I don’t gravitate towards the books other people seem guilt about (adult romance etc.) I think my collection of various Nightcrawler Xmen comics would be the closest, since some people are weirdly embarrassed about comics still, but I feel no guilt.

11. What non-fiction books do you like if any?

So many. I start fiction books with caution because I will get sucked in and not realize that other people exist and my body has needs and time is real. It’s a problem.

Nonfiction is much easier for me to step in and out of. I loved Light Eaters by Zöe Schlanger, I’ve enjoyed a lot of Michael Pollen’s writing, of course everyone talks about Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer but there’s a reason for that and the reason is it’s great. Mostly I read environmental, food, food justice sort of things. The fun thing about nonfiction books as that they reference other nonfiction books, so you get built in recommendations. I also love reading cookbooks— Start Here by Sohla El-Waylay is a newer favorite. I’m currently in the middle of Funny Boy: The Richard Hunt Biography by Jessica Max Stein which is really interesting.

[sxpositive]

book asks:

book you’ve reread the most times?

top 5 books of all time?

what is your favourite genre?

what sections of a bookstore do you browse?

where do you buy books?

what books have you read in the last month?

is there a series/book that got you into reading?

what is the first book you remember reading yourself?

when do you tend to read most?

do you have a guilty fav?

what non-fiction books do you like if any?

did you enjoy any compulsory high school readings?

do you have a goodreads?

do you ever mark/dog ear books you own?

recommend and review a book.

how many books have you read this year?

top 5 children’s books?

do you like historical books? which time period?

most disliked popular books?

what are things you look for in a book?

[iamthelowercase]

Hello, tumblr! I saw something on here the other day that worried me, so I decided to Do Science about it. But I can't do it alone: I need your help to build the dataset!

Here's what I need you to do:

If you see a post with a "mature content" label, and it's 2026, DM me a link to the post.

Yes, that's really it.

I am hoping to collect several thousand such posts, so that I have a decent sized dataset. I do not care what the post is about; if it's labeled as "mature content", I want to add it to my dataset.

If I get 10,000 posts in my dataset before August 31st 2026, I will post my preliminary findings then. I won't feel comfortable calling my findings "settled" before 2027, unless I get over 50,000 posts.

[iamthelowercase]

Tumblr Science FAQ, round 1

What's your hypothesis, OP?

I am not talking about that unless I have results to share. That would bias the results.

I did write them down and I did share them with a trusted contact who can prove that I wrote them down the same day I made this post. (While I did so before I made this post, I am not sure they will be able to provide proof of that, because I did so on the same day.)

OP are you interested in...?

Do you have to click through to see the post? Does the clickthrough contain the words "mature content"? Then yes.

OP are you interested if the post is about...?

I am interested in the mature content labels, not the content of the post. Is there a clickthrough that contains the words "mature content"? Then yes.

[iamthelowercase]

Tumblr Science FAQ, round 2

Should I reblog this for reach?

Yes, please. I felt really silly when I noticed I forgot to include that in the original post.

Is it okay if I send you my own posts?

Yes, those are perfect for what I'm looking for. I actually need to do some processing on a post to make it useful for testing my hypothesis, and this makes it easy.

Are you looking for "potentially mature content" also, or just "mature content"?

I want both, please. Anything that throws up a blocking screen that you have to click through. The distinctions between them are one of the things I am hoping to study.

Does it matter when the post was made originally?

Technically no. There's no way to respond to this without introducing some bias in the results, and I don't want that. However, I do collect some data on a post as part of making it useful to me, and that data is easier to collect if the post is recent.

What if I request content label review on a post after I send it to you?

I need to see the mature content label to be able to use the post. Because the mature content label hides the content of the post, it is very hard to use a post that no longer has a mature content label. You could send me a screenshot, but people could use that to lie to me.

Basically, it's more work for you to make it usable to me.

OP are you a transphobe? It would ruin the experiment for me if you're a transphobe.

I promise I'm not a transphobe and not doing this for transphobic reasons. You should still double-check that I'm not a transphobe for yourself, though. I am not sure that this study will have the useful effects you're hoping for; I am studying something specific, and it may not be what you hope.

[essektheylyss]

what really gets me about the ubiquity of the short form video scrolling interface is that it is functionally packaging the concept of flipping through TV channels. it is quite literally a microcosm of the image that we used to use to demonstrate the most tedious and honestly mindless state of boredom. how does anyone enjoy this.

[an-atlas-or-other]

Soccer players are the horses of sports. They run around in fields for hours on end. They stub their toe and they die. They fall and they die. They run into each other and

[pawthorn]

the thing about when people say fanfiction is their comfort reading/ writing so them don’t want to deal with heavy themes like misogyny etc is this.

what’s their non-comfort reading?

are they reading feminist and anti-racist literature elsewhere? or are they just completely hiding in fanworks that have a comfortable form of misogyny for them (because yes completely writing women out of stories is misogynistic.)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: reading is safe practice for life. it should make you uncomfortable sometimes. maybe the author has bigotry that you clock and have to contend with (people can be kind and funny and brilliant and sweet and profound and still have dogshit ideas about women and poc.)

maybe the book helps reveal your own biases. i grew up in a conservative culture, so a leading woman who used fantasy birth control and had sex with multiple partners in a normal healthy way was eye opening for me.

i think comfort fic is great! i read it myself. but i also read other things. because if i only eat cotton candy my teeth will fall out and i want to be able to bite when it matters.

[rose-in-a-fisted-glove]

For me, my non-comfort reading/writing is at work. I deal with all sorts of issues at work. Work is heavy and a lot of my coworkers suffer from compassion burnout within a few years.

So yeah, when I get home, I read fluff. I read catharsis. I read happy endings. I read "[x] is revealed" fics. If a fic doesn't suit the 'decompress' need, I don't read it.

Same thing for a novel, if a novel makes me feel bad-uncomfortable (unenjoyable), I'm putting it down. No shame or second thoughts.

In short, my fiction reading habits are coping mechanisms against compassion burnout and I don't fuck around with that.

[pawthorn]

so maybe this isn’t about you then

[rose-in-a-fisted-glove]

You asked what the non-comfort reading was for folks who say fanfic is their comfort reading/writing so they don't want to deal with heavy themes in their fics. I answered as one of the people you were talking about.

How then was it not about me?

[pawthorn]

are they reading feminist and anti-racist literature elsewhere? or are they just completely hiding in fanworks that have a comfortable form of misogyny for them (because yes completely writing women out of stories is misogynistic.)

this is what i said in my original post. i’m highlighting that “comfort reading” is some people’s only reading, they use the comfort label as a way to avoid branching out or having to deal with uncomfortable topics.

you say your non-comfort reading and writing is at work.

cool.

as a human i am aware of therapists and social workers and human rights activists who deal with heavy things daily. many of them still read feminist and anti-racist literature. some don’t.

my point is that people sometimes get very defensive of their comfort reading, especially if that comfort reading is very narrow in terms of what kind of characters get depth and attention and spotlight. and there’s nothing ethically wrong with having specific taste. but if a person is only comfort reading and never branching into experiences or ideas that push their boundaries, they will have a narrower viewpoint and toolbox for dealing with irl difficult things.

if that doesn’t describe you, the post is not about you.

[pawthorn]

the thing about when people say fanfiction is their comfort reading/ writing so them don’t want to deal with heavy themes like misogyny etc is this.

what’s their non-comfort reading?

are they reading feminist and anti-racist literature elsewhere? or are they just completely hiding in fanworks that have a comfortable form of misogyny for them (because yes completely writing women out of stories is misogynistic.)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: reading is safe practice for life. it should make you uncomfortable sometimes. maybe the author has bigotry that you clock and have to contend with (people can be kind and funny and brilliant and sweet and profound and still have dogshit ideas about women and poc.)

maybe the book helps reveal your own biases. i grew up in a conservative culture, so a leading woman who used fantasy birth control and had sex with multiple partners in a normal healthy way was eye opening for me.

i think comfort fic is great! i read it myself. but i also read other things. because if i only eat cotton candy my teeth will fall out and i want to be able to bite when it matters.

[rose-in-a-fisted-glove]

For me, my non-comfort reading/writing is at work. I deal with all sorts of issues at work. Work is heavy and a lot of my coworkers suffer from compassion burnout within a few years.

So yeah, when I get home, I read fluff. I read catharsis. I read happy endings. I read "[x] is revealed" fics. If a fic doesn't suit the 'decompress' need, I don't read it.

Same thing for a novel, if a novel makes me feel bad-uncomfortable (unenjoyable), I'm putting it down. No shame or second thoughts.

In short, my fiction reading habits are coping mechanisms against compassion burnout and I don't fuck around with that.

[pawthorn]

so maybe this isn’t about you then

[pawthorn]

the thing about when people say fanfiction is their comfort reading/ writing so them don’t want to deal with heavy themes like misogyny etc is this.

what’s their non-comfort reading?

are they reading feminist and anti-racist literature elsewhere? or are they just completely hiding in fanworks that have a comfortable form of misogyny for them (because yes completely writing women out of stories is misogynistic.)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: reading is safe practice for life. it should make you uncomfortable sometimes. maybe the author has bigotry that you clock and have to contend with (people can be kind and funny and brilliant and sweet and profound and still have dogshit ideas about women and poc.)

maybe the book helps reveal your own biases. i grew up in a conservative culture, so a leading woman who used fantasy birth control and had sex with multiple partners in a normal healthy way was eye opening for me.

i think comfort fic is great! i read it myself. but i also read other things. because if i only eat cotton candy my teeth will fall out and i want to be able to bite when it matters.

[elgreytea]

What are you reading rn, why are you reading it, and what format are you reading it in (physical book, ereader, on your phone etc)

[quasi-normalcy]

I've reached the point where cynicism is a major turn-off for me. You're not smarter than idealists, and you're not helping.

[quasi-normalcy]

Funny that the stereotypical cynic is an idealist who aged out of it. In my experience, the reverse is true. I was an extreme cynic as a teenager and then I noticed how profoundly limiting it was, and also that "cynics are cool and smart" was a message that was being constantly reinforced by corporate media for some reason.

[quasi-normalcy]

#yes! cynicism reads as very juvenile to me#and yes prev often stemming from teen pain

Yeah, like I see black-pilled people on here and my default reaction isn't "oh, these must be world-weary old warriors who've lost their faith in humanity", it's "these people are in their 20s and need a hobby"

[quasi-normalcy]

I also think that the present era has proven that authoritarian leaders don't actually want a population of wide-eyed idealists, they want a population of jaded assholes who are convinced that everyone is lying, any resistance is either a scam or doomed to failure, and nothing can ever get better.

And that they're somehow better than everyone else for being aware of the scam.

[probuccalfat]

stop inventing shit to be insecure about oh my god

[captainofthetidesbreath]

not going to lie, I'm at a point on this website where someone who too often describes a story beat or narrative implication using a food-related word like crunchy, juicy, spicy, delicious, tasty, or similar in the sense of interesting or of great depth and layers is functionally a tell for someone who has no actual substantial thoughts about story

I've just way too many times seen "crunchy" or "juicy" in posts that then go on to say nothing and do absolutely no analysis and have no real thoughts other than plot summary, or at least none less shallow than a puddle in Phoenix, AZ, while thinking they're doing a heavy lift to convey what makes the moment have such fascinating depth

[theskullofjudgement]

YOU PEOPLE HAVE A STRANGE IDEA OF WHAT IS OKAY TO SAY TO STRANGERS

[dizzyghoast]

honestly fandom has ruined me because now any time i'm in the desert and i see two vast and trunkless legs of stone or a half-sunk shattered visage i'm like "omg just like in Ozymandias" and its like come on girl not every half-sunk shattered visage is Ozymandias

[staticbluue]

“People should pass a test before being allowed to have kids.” “Isn’t it scary how white people have this inborn capacity for evil?” “I’ll never pass because males and females have different skull shapes.” “Autistic people have a stronger sense of justice than anyone else.” “I don’t want AMABs in my space because they’re dangerous.” “You shouldn’t have access to hormones if you dress like THAT.” “Anyone who does something that awful isn’t human.” “Some people really shouldn’t be allowed to vote.”

This is eugenics. This is phrenology. THIS IS NAZI SHIT, YOU ARE A LEFTIST BUYING INTO NAZI SHIT. YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE TO NAZI SHIT.

[dumbdoegirl]

huh. i am both wound and blade. neat.

[rooksunday]

okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.

they’re sharing

it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.

it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people

but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.

[silvermoon424]

[triforce-of-mischief]

[image id: a comment by @/auberginesdonthavelimbs that says "fandom is a potluck. you can come and eat the food even if you didn't bring anything, but if you just take food and leave and don't interact with anyone that's kind of weird. the point of the potluck is to hang out." /end id]