Adventures in life and fandoms (but mostly fandoms)

Anon, I don’t know why your friend said that - best case scenario, they’re just misguided. But they’re wrong.

There’s nothing creepy about bookmarking. At all. It’s a feature entirely separate from kudos and comments and has its own purpose. As an author, I’m flattered when people choose to bookmark my fic ( except when they add rude comments to it but w/e) and as a reader, I use that function liberally.

But if your friend’s comments have made you anxious about bookmarking, then you can always use private bookmarks. That way, no one except you will see that you’ve bookmarked a fic but you’ll still be there (as a number) in the author’s stat page, supporting them. Win-win.

To mark a bookmark as private there’s a check box at the bottom of the bookmark box

I’ve seen people express this “bookmarking is creepy UwU!” attitude on r/fanfiction over at Reddit. Very often, it comes from people who are judgemental AF about fandom writing for one reason or another or who came into fandom via other judgemental types. Using bookmarks to bully people over fics and especially art has grown popular in recent years.

But to Anon: inherently, there’s nothing wrong with the function. In fact, this was a huge draw back when FFN was new and shiny, so that we didn’t have to have a long ass favorites list on our AOL browser to sort through. Instead, you’d have them in one localized place. Bonus points for FFN showing who bookmarked our stuff, which was always a good way to find new writers and new fics.

I am TERRIBLY happy every time I see a kudos or bookmark on my fic. When someone bookmarks my fic, they probably mean they want to re-read it? Because this is the purpose of bookmarking for me! And no matter how much I’d love to see more people commenting on my fics, I don’t find kudos and bookmarks creepy, quite the contrary!

[Image Description: Tag reading “no fluff we read angst and cry like men”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Healthy masculinity

Forest doggos

@lazycrazywitch

Y’know, NaNoWriMo isn’t actually about getting 50,000 words in 30 days

Yeah, that’s the Goal – but it’s not what it’s about

NaNoWriMo is about sitting down, starting a project, and learning to manage that project and keep going even when it gets hard

it’s about building skills and forming habits and developing discipline and learning more about yourself as a creator so you can get a sense for what writing methods do/don’t work for you

its about trying things – about making discoveries and making mistakes, and about making progress without getting mired in the minutia so you end the month with more words than you had when you started

It’s framed like a contest ‘cause goals and prizes make things fun, but you’re only really playing against yourself

50,000 words is only a target to shoot for ‘cause without a target it’s pretty hard to practice your aim

It is, and I cannot stress this seriously enough, also about making the people in your life respect your writing time.

It’s also about finding a community.

Writing is a lonely business. Ninety percent of your time is spent in front of your computer or at your notebook, dragging words out of your head and forcing them onto paper. If you don’t have people in your life who are encouraging and supportive and understanding, it’s ten times harder.

NaNoWriMo gives you access to a worldwide community of writers just like you.

Engaging with the NaNoWriMo community is how I met some of my closest friends and critique partners. It’s how I joined fandom. It’s one of the reasons I volunteer for NaNoWriMo every year now: because I want to give other people the encouragement to follow their dreams to write a novel.

Maybe it gets published. Maybe it doesn’t. But for many of the people I’ve seen, publication isn’t necessarily the end goal. It’s about finally starting the project that you always said you would, and finding a group of like-minded people who are in the same boat. 

Writing a novel will never be easy. But when you have a community with you, it sure as hell helps.

Anon, I’m speaking up because I want you to know that feeling is normal. Different responses to our fics will give us different levels of excitement. You’re not being ungrateful toward a comment that’s simple if you’re only response is being slightly happy. You don’t need to be over the moon every time you get a comment. Smiling and appreciating it for a moment before moving on is still an appropriate response. It’s also okay to be disappointed. We’re writers—we love long feedback and it’s natural when we’ve been starved for so long to be less excited over short comments. You’re not a bad person for feeling this way.

I think you should accept that you feel this way and don’t be too hard on yourself. You aren’t rude or ungrateful for having feelings, but you’re hurting yourself thinking there’s something wrong with you when there isn’t. You’re fine.  

That is mee all the time. I’m publishing a long fic and the fact I got very little (like, very little: one person, a friend of mine, a long-time reader) commenting on regular basis got me really upset. I am aware I would be upset regardless of comments amount, I’m always feedback starved: my recent crisis caused by the pressure of publishing a long text online after few years break caused me discussing it with some fellow writers and they all feel the same. They love feedback, they appeiceate every comment their get, but they always want more. What we need to learn is to look more at what we have, than at what we we imagine it could be. Especially when comments are not the reason we are writing (for me they definitely are not!)

keep your friends close, but your enemies closer

like really, very close

intimately close 

so close that you can feel your enemies breath on your neck

and you shiver with hatred and… anticipation? 

turn around and look deep into your enemies eyes, letting your gaze drag down to their lips, your eyes intense with desire. push your enemies up against the wall.

make out with your enemies.

your friends, who are still close, are super uncomfortable and kinda grossed out

This is how you should ask trans and non-binary people about their identity 

YOURE DOING SO WELL SWEETIE IM SO PROUD OF YOU

This is cute

Mad respect to people who are supportive and doing all they can to be informed! 

This makes my heart so happy 😭

💛⚪️💜🖤

I have no idea, who this guy is, but I love him already

Polish husarz (left) and szlachcic (right) in rainbow attire. Warsaw Pride 20gayteen.

(https://www.instagram.com/p/BjzzLlLAz1t/)-credit

Sorry for the inactivity, the only thing I managed to draw for myself are my hussars

I also started making a WorldAnvil page for them! It’s still a work in progress but you can check it out if you’re interested.

Bonus smooch:

Reblog if you’re doing NaNoWriMo this year!

Hey y'all why are writers always cold?

...why?

They're always surrounded by drafts!

How many mystery writers does it take to change a lightbulb?

Oh god.

How many?

Two! One to change the bulb, and the other to give it an unexpected twist at the end!

What do writers have for breakfast?

Coffee?

Synonym buns!

Where do all the struggling writers live?

How are you coming up with all these?

Where?

Writer's Block!

What do writers suffer from each spring?

(I've heard a lot of them over the years.)

Allergies. Next question.

you were close; A case of allegories

Why are writers always in great shape?

Circular prose

Nope! It's because we're always running out of ideas!

Did you hear about the famous writer who turned out to be a fraud?

I did not

His life had it's prose and cons...

Why is editing a better job than writing?

It's more rewording?

Correct! I am out of jokes. :(

@deadcatwithaflamethrower puns!

OW.

Granted that this is my first time writing A. F/F fic, and B. Rivals to Lovers, this is pretty much the exact response I’d have been hoping for.

–

Image Reads:  ‘The tension!  The suspense!  THE GAY!’

A lot of times, when a reader says some variation of “I dont like x” they really mean “this isn’t my thing and you sold me on it anyway!” which is actually a huge compliment. I always approach comments like that from this point of view, and will reply with something along the lines of “thanks, I’m so glad you liked it even though it wasn’t your thing. I’m very flattered that you gave me/my fic a chance.”

“I don’t like X, but...” is one of best compliments I’ve ever get. I recall a friend who didn’t like fantasy, who awaited every chapter of my fantasy story. I recall a guy who wrote under my mlm story, that he is a straight guy and he read it by accident but it was great. It’s a huge accomplishment, when you get something like this.

The appalling travesty that was BBC’s Sherlock has infested the Sherlock Holmes fandom like a malignant tumour so I want you all to know how awesome the OG literary Holmes was: