kshaar:

the thread between beaujester’s “In my loneliness, I got angry and turned to bad things. But in your loneliness, you turned to creativity” and the isolation inherent in Imogen’s condition and Laudna puppetting a dead rat because she was alone and Patia Por'co’s whole entire everything and I don’t know what it is precisely that Laura and Marisha are doing but they’re doing an incredible job and i am definitely insane because of it

derinthescarletpescatarian:

brightwanderer:

onetruepigeon:

lovetheirloves:

zmediaoutlet:

quickreaver:

awabubbles:

disdaidal:

“fandoms are dying”

yeah well here’s a cool idea: start creating and start reblogging. leave nice comments to your favorite creators. send them prompts. start interacting with others. sounds wild, right? start it today. keep these fandoms alive.

I appreciate the optismism of “build it and they will come” but i think the true frustration behind “fandoms are dying” is a multi layered problem that making more content will not fix because:

a) puritanism, bullying, purging of content, and antis are on the rise. especially of nsfw art.

“But i don’t want nsfw art” you say. “I only want pure, good art/fic thats full of happy puppies and kitties”. tough tits. you cant nurture creativity in a fandom thats constantly gatekeeping. thats how you get “dead fandoms”.

b) giant corporations are co opting fandoms in an attempt to make [even more] money. this feeds back into point a (of course disney doesn’t want queer/adult content, they’re advertisers/investors would disapprove) and therefore antis feel more empowered to bully and harrass.

c) the circle of social media platforms in which it is “safe” to post your nsfw content has basically zeroed down to twitter. even patreon will ban your art if its the wrong fictional ship [i know, it’s happened to me]. maybe there’s more leeway for writing like ao3 or tumblr, but we all know this site died after the nsfw purge and is making it even harder to get exposure after the latest round of banned hashtags and everybody from sfw artists to gif and graphic editors suffer from no audience and a lack of engagement [remember what i said about gatekeeping killing creativity?]

Now lets say you DO post your nsfw slash art on twitter. Its basically the wild west. Anybody can find you, attack you, bully/harrass you and, again, because of points b + c these harassers all think they have a right to do so.

SO. “Make more content for your fandom” is a nice sentiment except there’s nowhere to post, no one to like it, and everybody is so goddamned scared of death threats and being cancelled they either don’t make the content to begin with or people don’t reblog/share because “what if the creator is secretly a bad person and i didnt know it and now other people think im a bad person”.

Fandoms are dead because the water is toxic. Dropping more stuff into the water won’t help. You gotta clean up the water first if you want creativity to thrive.

Holy shit, this is so true. And it’s a travesty.

This does seem true. I think there’s also an element that most fandom members are consumers of the modern type; to wit: they scroll mindlessly, intake content, and pass by it untouched in favor of the next brief hit of serotonin. There’s no sense of community engagement, which is the bulk of what OP (hi OP, nice post you have here) was getting at.

Yes, people creating is nice, but in any space there will be a *vanishingly* small percentage of people who are actually doing work – the other 98% of the group is there to witness it. Which is fine, and normal. What is less fine is that the 98% is just… sitting there. Like the fics and art and good gifsets and meta writing (the stuff that makes a fandom a *fandom* instead of just a bunch of people consuming a text) are all made by faceless streaming companies, produced exclusively for the 98%’s enjoyment and then easily discarded. It’s an understandable attitude, especially in these days of grimy fake-friendly corporations and everyone being Depressed, but it’s not one that’s actually conducive to creators wanting to create. And then you don’t have a fandom – you have a few diehards still doggedly making their thing because they really love it, and seven people (if you’re lucky) interacting with it at all, and the rest is just… a faceless, indifferent audience out in the dark, who don’t react at all.

It sucks.

We’ve also lost most static public places for fandom discussion. Tumblr is ephemeral, Discord servers are private or at least require knowing the server even exists to join it, AO3 is a great place to host fic but isn’t the ideal platform for discourse and general geekery, LJ is dead. 

This last bit is the thing for me. I do not know how to actually participate in fandom anymore, so my MO is to read a bunch of fic, reblog some gifs and move on. Unless you already have a community of people and they go on the ride with you, it is monumentally hard to find one anymore.

Hard agree with the “but where do we even go to talk about fandom now?” feeling. Also, I like @zmediaoutlet‘s addition, because I think it’s very true, but I also agree with the take that it’s not exactly the fault of the people doing that kind of silent consume-and-discard thing - this is how our media and our social media has been training us for years now. This isn’t a “shame on you for not interacting” problem, it’s a “how the heck do we rebuild spaces where interaction is expected and encouraged and fun and doesn’t result in getting abused off the internet because you dared to like something Problematic” problem.

We need to bring proper internet forums back. They don’t solve all the problems but they sure do help with the interactivity one.

posttexasstressdisorder:

juicetrump2:

I WISH HOBBY LOBBY A VERY NICE BANKRUPTCY AND DESTRUCTION!

realtalk127:

laudna knowing exactly how to help imogen. 💛

c3 ep4

vexbeau-deactivated20220908:

beauregard lionett, queen of getting flustered about her crush on jester

vexbeau-deactivated20220908:

here’s a compilation of my favorite laura/jester reactions to beau being in mortal danger