new favorite YouTube comment just dropped
As a wolf, sign me up for that
women and gender get the lifeboats first
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.
On the rest of the internet, there are creators and there are consumers. Those roles have been, for most of the last ten years, transactional. I put out; you receive. Sometimes you give me money; most of the time, it's just your attention (which is turned into money by other means).
But fandom doesn't have consumers; we have readers. And they have forgotten--or maybe they're new and didn't know--that they're an important part of fandom, too. You have a place here, even if you never write or draw or gif or edit. When a creator posts a thing they made, it's a bid that says, "Look at what I love. Do you love it, too?" And when you reach out to say, "I love it, too," you're saying, "Let's love it together."
I have watched people get increasingly weird about comments and reblogs on both sides of this argument. And I know why, because I've felt the difference, too. When fandom was centralised on Livejournal, we had comment threads on every post, and talking to each other was easy. When we were forced to leave, we scattered, and AO3 was there for our work, but the community was lost.
I took a long break from fandom during the 2010s, and when I came back, I saw a lot of one-way broadcasting and not the same kind of community. Because that's what the rest of the internet looked like. YouTubers and Twitter comedians and freelance writers just trying to make a living at a dozen different outlets. Which is to say, I understand why fandom is like this now.
But I want to remind you of what it used to be. Some people write fic, and others make rec lists. Some people make gifs, and others write meta essays. Some people know logistics for publishing zines, and others can fill the pages with art. You have a place here along with everyone else, whatever you can do. Find your thing, do your thing, and then reach out to someone else and say, hey, let's do this thing together.
I'm 43 now. I found fandom in 1996, when I was so obsessed with The X-Files that I needed to more. I read and read and read for years before I ever reached out--by email!--to tell someone I loved what they made. (Lurkers, you too are part of this community!) When I finally worked myself up and posted my first story, someone reached out to me and said, hey, come join us. Let's do this together.
So I'm reaching out to you because I used to be you. There's a place for you here. And the way to find your place is to leave a comment on a story you love, reblog a post with tags, send an ask. Fandom is not only fic or fanart or gifs. It's all of us together.
"i do not dream of labour" is one of the worst pseudo-marxist taglines that western leftists have co-opted because when you ask them what they do dream of, they say traveling, studying, and creating art. broski, who's flying the plane to take you to prague? who's the security at the library with the texts you're studying? who are the clerks in the museum showcasing your art? like bro, you do dream of labour. you just dream of someone else doing it so you don't have to! you merely want to outsource the labour and make it invisible.
quick tip from someone who has been in fan spaces for 20 years: being enthusiastic about your rarepair and making your own stuff/engaging your fellow rarepair shippers will ALWAYS work better than yelling at people who enjoy a more popular ship about how bland their ship is
sometimes i wish i had facial hair
like sexy stubble or something that would be so cool
perfect
im not coming back to tumblr i just needed to find this post in order to dunk on my younger self. you absolute baby buffoon. you dumbass
Some links to recent-ish accounts of Indigenous people from Abya Yala being impacted by ICE in the US, particularly Maya, Zapotec, and Mixtec people in California
In-depth articles
Invisible in the data: A Maya family struggles to rebuild in Guatemala after being deported (December 2025)
I’m a 17-Year-Old Zapoteca in L.A., Choosing to Help My Community Over Fearing ICE (August 2025)
Indigenous Communities From Southern Mexico Refuse to Bow to ICE in California (August 2025)
Hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan children can stay in the U.S. for now, judge says (August 2025) - on the Trump administration's attempt to deport 600 Guatemalan children, most of them Indigenous
L.A. kidnapping of 14 Zapotec men
Fourteen garment workers 'kidnapped' in ICE raids (June 2025) - the workers were Zapotec living in L.A.
Demand release of Zapotec workers who say they were kidnapped by ICE (June 2025) - from the families of the Zapotec garment workers
Lucha Zapoteca - instagram page of community members working to return the garment workers to their families (as of January 2026, three have been deported, eleven have returned to their families, but they are facing court hearings yet)
Urgent Aid for LA Families of 14 Detained by ICE - where you can donate to support the families
Zio is a slur just like the n-word is a slur. If you know not to say the n-word then ask yourself why you are all comfortable saying Zio with your chest
Comparing the n-word, which even you couldn’t bring yourself to say, to Zio is disgusting but exactly how Zionists think.
The n word has centuries of violent baggage. It carries immediate visceral harm even today. It is still connected to the ongoing oppression black people face everywhere.
You all have such a big victim complex for a bunch of people actively carrying out a genocide.
Zionists need to feel like victims so they have something to hide behind while they cheer on a genocide.
The n word carries centuries of violence that was backed by systemic state violence.
Zio is a linguistic clipping. Not a slur. Stop falling for Zionists telling you it is. And especially stop falling for the claim that it’s somehow comparable to slurs that carry a history of systemic violence.
Ada Limón, “To Be Made Whole”, On Being with Krista Tippett
One day, in the future, this entire system of tiered passports and immigration restrictions and second-class citizenship will be gone, a relic of the past, and the phrase "Immigration is a human right, moving is a human right" will seem as quaint and obvious as "Aparteid is bad" in an old sci-fi episode
I have terrible news
I keep trying to post a picture of fig. A really bad one. But tumblr keeps giving me an error message. Maybe the world isnt ready
Im going to split it into 4ths and see if that works
FUCK YEAAAAAHHH
pardon me sire, it is time for your meoiwsturising regimen
we're the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn, and also the daughters of the men who wanted some freaky witch pussayyyyy 😛🧙🏻♀️
troutreznor
"how to prevent smile lines" die young and miserable
a lot of my autism masking is just making myself more palatable for other people and my therapist said "does spock make himself 'more palatable' for others?" and had me promise to keep unmasking like:
Me in it if im being honest
