dEmOnGiRl_yAsHa's CoRnEr

[keplercryptids]

“wow you blocked me just cuz i disagreed with you???”

yes. yes, exactly. this is a social media site. i come here to look at pictures of birds and shitpost with my friends. this is not a town hall meeting; i am not your elected official. i do not owe you my energy, my space, or my time. you and i are strangers that use the same website. i can block you for literally any reason and that’s okay. take a deep breath. block me too. you’ll feel better.

[taiey]

normalise low blocking thresholds… blocking someone arguing with you is not weak or over-reacting or whatever.

[elfwreck]

You don’t owe anyone access to your posts or your ask box.

Blocking features are built into the site. Use them liberally to make your Tumblr experience as enjoyable as possible.

[bookofmirth]

I’ve probably reblogged this already but wow I love blocking. I love seeing someone engage in bullying behavior on someone else’s post and thinking “huh, don’t want this one anywhere near me”. If people who have never interacted with me wonder why they’re blocked, it’s because they’ve been a bitch somewhere and I happened to see it. You don’t have to have been a bitch to me personally for me to know I don’t want you anywhere near me.

[doctortwhohiddles]

Freedom of speech is also freedom to not want to hear someone’s shitty opinion on your blog or in the tags.

[ad-wills]

[avelera]

Pro-writing tip: if your story doesn't need a number, don't put a fucking number in it.

Nothing, I mean nothing, activates reader pedantry like a number.

I have seen it a thousand times in writing workshops. People just can't resist nitpicking a number. For example, "This scifi story takes place 200 years in the future and they have faster than light travel because it's plot convenient," will immediately drag every armchair scientist out of the woodwork to say why there's no way that technology would exist in only 200 years.

Dates, ages, math, spans of time, I don't know what it is but the second a specific number shows up, your reader is thinking, and they're thinking critically but it's about whether that information is correct. They are now doing the math and have gone off drawing conclusions and getting distracted from your story or worse, putting it down entirely because umm, that sword could not have existed in that Medieval year, or this character couldn't be this old because it means they were an infant when this other story event happened that they're supposed to know about, or these two events now overlap in the timeline, or... etc etc etc.

Unless you are 1000% certain that a specific number is adding to your narrative, and you know rock-solid, backwards and forwards that the information attached to that number is correct and consistent throughout the entire story, do yourself a favor, and don't bring that evil down upon your head.

[bookishdiplodocus]

Editor here. Can confirm.

"Two centuries later" just triggers a mental note to check if timing is consistent throughout the book, because it may mean more time jumps are ahead. "200 years later", or heaven forbid, "201 years later" will have me draw up a time line. The more specific the number, the more critical people become.

Strange phenomenon. Well spotted, OP.

[longroadstonowhere]

actually i think i might have an explanation for this from linguistics? i think folks get more nitpicky if you have specific numbers because of gricean maxims, specifically the maxims of quality and quantity

basically gricean maxims are a set of guidelines that we all carry in our heads that we expect other people to follow when having a conversation in good faith - i’m copying and pasting definitions from someone else because my attempts at summing up quality and quantity weren’t going so hot

The maxim of quantity, where one tries to be as informative as one possibly can, and gives as much information as is needed, and no more.

The maxim of quality, where one tries to be truthful, and does not give information that is false or that is not supported by evidence.

so basically, when you put a rough number in a text, people think subconsciously ‘oh, the exact number isn’t important, because if it was they would tell me an exact number, so i don’t need to worry about this’, whereas if you put something precise in, people’s brains go ‘wait, they think i need to know this information so i’ll remember it, but now it’s later and they’ve said something that contradicts it, so at least one of those times they were lying and i must figure out which time it was’

[dduane]

Also: don't specify data storage sizes. Just, you know, don't.

[ad-wills]

[pervocracy]

Another thing that’s cool about fanfiction: it’s as long as it needs to be.

Well, sometimes it’s longer than anything on God’s green earth needs to be, but my point is that there’s really no rules about fic length.  In traditional publishing there’s this awkward middle where nobody wants to print a novella that’s too long for a short story collection but doesn’t really fill out a book.  Ebooks have changed that somewhat but it’s still a convention that a book is about 75,000 words.

Fanfic is not bound by this standard.  If your story takes 25,000 words to tell, then you can do that, and there are readers for whom that’s a sweet spot.  If you just want to keep going and going for 350,000 words and beyond, nobody’s going to say “only famous authors with grand ideas get to do that”–text is low bandwidth and there are readers who will love the feeling that your story is a home where they’re invited to stay as long as they like.

Sometimes restrictions breed creativity, and some writers need to be forced to edit themselves.  But some writers know exactly what they’re doing when they make a story a certain length, and it’s awesome that the Internet has created spaces that put no limits on that.

[fellshish]

“I’ll just write this short little fic”, the author says, not realising they’re doomed by the narrative

[soviet-union-deactivated19911226]

u ever see someone with extremely fucked up views (or actions) and think wowww if a couple of things in my life went the tiniest bit differently that would have been me

[max1461]

I think most people would benefit from reflecting on how this might be true for them

[vacuously-true]

Sometimes people bitch about media, both fiction and nonfiction, that they think "humanizes" bad people, especially bigots fascists Nazis et cetera. And I'm just like. Hey. Hey. The problem is. They ARE human. HUMANS did that. Your next door neighbor could do that. Your grandma could do that. You could do that.

"No I'm a good person" why? Because you've gotten lucky and not seen propaganda yet that perfectly hit your buttons? Because you had people to correct you when you fucked up? Idk man I don't think we're all so different from the bad people. We're all just people.

Reminding ourselves of our shared humanity with terrible people does NOT serve to justify their actions. It serves to remind us that the seeds of what happened to them could get into us as well, or might already have. It reminds us to be vigilant and interrogate the hatred inside us.

If you convince yourself that you're just an Inherently Good Person who would never believe hateful things well. Now any little hateful thing that makes its way inside you undetected is never going to be interrogated. It will be left to grow undisturbed.

If you remember that those things can get into anyone, you know to look out for them, and weed them out when they appear, and take the criticism when others point them out in you. So remember, that could have been you. If you forget, maybe it will be.

[ad-wills]

[writing-prompt-s]

The villain claims to have injected you with a truth serum. In reality the serum they injected you with only prevents you from lying and the villain will soon learn that not lying and telling the truth are two very different things.

[writing-prompt-s]

You are perfectly immortal. You can’t age, you can’t get any wounds, you can survive anything, and even if the universe were to end you are immediately taken to another universe. Not because you are demi-god or a wizard, but because the god of death’s daughter is in love with you.

[just-french-me-up]

[clandestinegardenias]

My therapist just told me my problem is that I need to write more fanfiction.

[clandestinegardenias]

This sounds fake but the logic behind it is actually really interesting? She said obsession with a new fandom triggers quick dopamine release when we consume all this related content--it's easy and addictive.

What we're NOT getting is that 'slow dopamine' that's more sustainable and engaging. That's the kind we get from DOING things that take effort but are ultimately rewarding.

So like, she suggested that writing fic and making fanart are ways to balance the quick dopamine of watching a show/reading fic with the slow dopamine of working at something that takes effort.

Moral of the story is you should engage in the process of creation around your favorite things. You'll feel better for it.

[owldaughter]

Oh.

OH.

[dduane]

Let's all go do fandom.

FOR SCIENCE!

:)

[catchymemes]

[toastbutteregg]

[thecollectibles]

Art by 雨迟yuki

[sandersstudies]

Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!

Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It's me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here's the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)

Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!

Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks

[sandersstudies]

Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!

Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row

[coldgoldlazarus]

[sandmandaddy69]