Stars of Shadow and Dust

Rook (like the bird) | 26 | They/Them artist, writer, accidental sports coach, semi-legal planetary geologist likely to yell about Boston Fleet, museums, and safety

[thirstkanaphan]

[vithcy]

How it feels to post about your ocs even though only 2 people care about them

[timberwind]

you can post on tumblr even when you're trying to take a break from social media it literally doesn't count. it's like pepsi max, or pescatarianism

[juicydangler]

[sirfetchd]

how it feels to be obsessed with your own ocs but you cant think of what to say about them

[uwillneverknowwho]

Literally always take headphones with you. If you decide that you probably won't need them today, that's the devil talking. You will. You will

[auspex]

where would we be without friend OCs... nowhere good!

[goodnightwindy]

4 days until wet rat wednesday

[goodnightwindy]

3 days until wet rat wednesday

[goodnightwindy]

1 day until wet rat wednesday

[goodnightwindy]

happy wet rat wednesday

[public-universal-sister]

Despite all my wrath I am still just a rat in a bath

[kedreeva]

it could have been a good update, if they had simply ADDED a feature instead of CHANGING the feature.

JUST adding the ability to reblog from anywhere in the thread (thus saving us the trouble of going up a poster to remove a reblog we don't want/need, such as sometimes I go up a reblog to not carry on a ping someone did to me, as that doesn't need to follow the post everywhere)? Cool. We were already doing that kind of stuff. People have up-chained to remove additions since time immemorial on this hellsite. This would literally have just been a time-saver button.

JUST adding in a comment-adder getting notification ALSO if their addition was reblogged (and NOT removing the notification/notes from the original post), so that OP and the commenter get notified? Yeah okay. Nothing would have been taken away from anyone, and this would actually add a function that would allow commenters to respond to people who reply to them, even if the person didn't reblog directly from them. OP would also see, so they could also be in the conversation they started. No one gets cut out of the conversation if they've added to it. That would be neat.

But to cut OP out of the conversation if someone reblogged from them and commented?? what kind of hot garbage?? what kind of drug-induced hallucination created this community-killing change? Who on earth approved this? What was the goal of this move?? You could have done something good and useful with your time instead of pissing on your poor userbase and calling it rain.

@changes @staff @tumblr @humans

[ymutate]

Charlotte Baxter（Welsh),

Tan y Bwlch, Wood and Linocut, 65 x 53 cm.

Edition 10.

[starsofshadowanddust]

Just saw the transit security guy helping an old lady carry her roller cart down and then went back to help her down the stairs as well. Like yeah that what I WANT them here for! Helping people out, especially as all the stations elevators are down because of the remodel.

[exitwound]

mutuals

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

Which is prev?

Unmarried girl

Apologist

Craftsman who works with a wheel

Archivist

Dying person

Educator

Girl

Jurist

Knife sharpener

Lawyer

Librarian

Remaining time: 4 days 14 hours

[sodiumvaporss]

i do have to say that no matter how shitty any sort of media is or how shitty your own creations are. always remember

[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.

[skopostheorie]

Once I "made" a custom emoji for my mum by crudely drawing a hijab on it and now whenever she wants me to buy a coffee for her I get a text like this

[cnmcn]

absolutley enchanted by cobepee

[veneratedrot]

🐅

[elierlick]

Yet another new study debunked the basis for the anti-trans sports bans. It was never about sports but for creating legal avenues for exclusion and abjection. This is one of the largest analyses ever conducted, involving 52 studies and 6,485 trans people. Read the study here.

[lucieslucidity]

post so nice had to reblog it twice and force it down everyone's throats

[baileyschnapps]

brb going on a walk to clear my head