#psa from me

[imaginesandideas]

no but that text post abt writing being dead on tumblr - not specifically bc ppl are leaving it but bc readers don’t reblog stuff they read/like - made me think...

imagine daydreaming. and coming up with ideas on random occasions, maybe at work/school/classes. imagine that those ideas involve characters you love, ones that have fandoms and in those fandoms - big or small - there are people just as invested in those characters, in their evolution, history, everything that goes unspoken on the big/small screen, in the books/comic books. 

then imagine spending hours on a single wip, just because all these ideas, thoughts occupy your mind, they need space to expand. imagine having many rough ideas written down in some doc, imagine having many of said docs. 

and imagine that you polish one idea for days/weeks, just to get the feelings/description/dialogue perfect and fitting so somehow it becomes a story. imagine that people are interested in the idea, so you post the story once it’s finished.

now imagine getting asks/messages from people who liked your story, imagine the encouragement, the thumbs up that make you keep going. 

because it finally feels like your idea wasn’t just good in your head. the validation of your creativity, of the hours/days/weeks spent on perfecting your idea, and in consequence also your craft - which, trust me, gets better with time and with all the next stories that you write down with the said kudos from others. 

comments/messages matter so much. they are much like the ‘thank you letters’, with verbal and physical you give creators during conventions, events like comic con etc. if you got the chance to meet your favourite actor/actress/musician/screenwriter/director you’d probably want to thank them for their work, you’d tell them how their art impacted you. because creators do that to you, they inspire, they motivate us. and they need just as motivation and feedback! and then treat reblogs as those who purchased the art that those creators created. they spread a message that a certain piece of work is worth attention, that it should be read/seen/known. that it should be spread and given the - dingdingding - attention!!!

we like to take online creators - especially those who post their work anonymously - for granted. because there will always be someone willing to post their work for free for a small chance for validation, right?

what i’m trying to say is, our interests shape our lives. some of those online creators, with enough encouragement, will be brave enough to make their creative skill a part of their career, a part of their daily life. you never know how one’s life looks like. and sometimes that one message might just determine whether a creator will or will not continue to pursue their dream. we’re all just dreamers in the end.

#writer things #writing #writers #writer problems #writer's woes #writer's block #writers of tumblr #oooof that was one heavy load to get off my shoulders #me letting go of writing and refusing a job offer in a copy office was partially caused by thinking that im not good enough #cause i stopped getting feedback apart from kudos/likes #which - believe me - are cute #but they mean as much as any other like on any other post #PSA from me #AN IMPORTANT PSA

[just-french-me-up]

this is a PSA for fic writers who haven't updated in a while :

there are fics out there I'm subscribed to that have gone double digit months without updating.

rest assured the moment those babies catapult an AO3 email my way i'm dropping from the face of the earth to sink my teeth into them

i'll wait, and so will your readers

#writing #writing nightmare #writeblr #writers #writer's problems #writing problems #fanfiction #fanfic #fanfic writers #this is a psa from me to me honestly #cause I have not abandoned my child #my brain is just suffering from my workload #mine

[avarkriss]

listen. listen to me so carefully right now. (if you're in the eclipse path/planning on viewing). please don't stare directly at the sun tomorrow. i am begging you - do not stare at it. if you got eclipse glasses off of amazon/other, please put them on in your house and make sure you can't see anything; if you can still see like regular sun glasses, they are not safe for eclipse viewing, you will burn your retinas, and we cannot fix that. eclipse glasses should be iso/ce certified, and aas (american astronomical society) approved. please make smart choices and protect your eyes. please.

#psa from your friendly neighborhood eye care provider #the office is already fielding so many calls about this make good life choices #very important #eclipse #solar eclipse #eye health #not medical advice #just me screaming to please protect your eyes #ive seen exactly one case of solar retinopathy in my career so far please don't give me another one

[lary-the-lizard]

Unless I specify otherwise every character I write has body hair. That includes armpits, chest, legs, pubic and butt hair. They also have stretch marks and pimples and random scars from every day accidents. Unless I specify otherwise none of my characters have abs or a big ass. All my characters have normal bodies unless it’s important to their character arch that they are ugly or manicured. Even my “sexy” characters have clogged pores and soft bellies and body hair.

#writing #psa from me #about my fucked up little guys #normal bodies

[sableeira]

And Dazai is like: omg how did he figure it out?!?!?!?

#another entry in my series of stealing quotes from my favorite pieces of media #psa: Gansey is my fave raven boy but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to redraw it so Mori kinda got the Gansey line u_u #also let your imagination run wild what happened during the mission and why they are getting scolded #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bsd fanart #soukoku #osamu dazai #bsd dazai #chuuya nakahara #bsd chuuya #bsd mori #mori ougai #my art #also still drawing panels for the au I was talking about a while back #someone pls take rimlights away from me this whole lighting set up doesn’t even make sense but I just need rimlights always

[rongzhi]

A winter reminder

English added by me :)

#eye strain #flashing #douyin #video #tiktok #含亮老师 #dlkafjkl you do not knooooow the intense whiplash these collabs always give me #idk if they do this on tiktok but it's such like a part of douyin culture lolol #that and the health reminders from celebrities #the women's pingpong team like PUT YOUR PHONE DOWN TAKE A BREAK #hmmm typo..... tied should be tidied.... #but the vibe is kind of still there so it's good it's cool i don't care #psa #chinese weapons

[5ummit]

AO3 Ship Stats: Year In Bad Data

You may have seen this AO3 Year In Review.

It hasn’t crossed my tumblr dash but it sure is circulating on twitter with 3.5M views, 10K likes, 17K retweets and counting. Normally this would be great! I love data and charts and comparisons!

Except this data is GARBAGE and belongs in the TRASH.

I first noticed something fishy when I realized that Steve/Bucky – the 5th largest ship on AO3 by total fic count – wasn’t on this Top 100 list anywhere. I know Marvel’s popularity has fallen in recent years, but not that much. Especially considering some of the other ships that made it on the list. You mean to tell me a femslash HP ship (Mary MacDonald/Lily Potter) in which one half of the pairing was so minor I had to look up her name because she was only mentioned once in a single flashback scene beat fandom juggernaut Stucky? I call bullshit.

Now obviously jumping to conclusions based on gut instinct alone is horrible practice... but it is a good place to start. So let’s look at the actual numbers and discover why this entire dataset sits on a throne of lies.

Here are the results of filtering the Steve/Bucky tag for all works created between Jan 1, 2023 and Dec 31, 2023:

Not only would that place Steve/Bucky at #23 on this list, if the other counts are correct (hint: they're not), it’s also well above the 1520-new-work cutoff of the #100 spot. So how the fuck is it not on the list? Let’s check out the author’s FAQ to see if there’s some important factor we’re missing.

The first thing you’ll probably notice in the FAQ is that the data is being scraped from publicly available works. That means anything privated and only accessible to logged-in users isn’t counted. This is Sin #1. Already the data is inaccurate because we’re not actually counting all of the published fics, but the bots needed to do data collection on this scale can't easily scrape privated fics so I kinda get it. We’ll roll with this for now and see if it at least makes the numbers make more sense:

Nope. Logging out only reduced the total by a couple hundred. Even if one were to choose the most restrictive possible definition of "new works" and filter out all crossovers and incomplete fics, Steve/Bucky would still have a yearly total of 2,305. Yet the list claims their total is somewhere below 1,500? What the fuck is going on here?

Let’s look at another ship for comparison. This time one that’s very recent and popular enough to make it on the list so we have an actual reference value for comparison: Nick/Charlie (Heartstopper). According to the list, this ship sits at #34 this year with a total of 2630 new works. But what’s AO3 say?

Off by a hundred or so but the values are much closer at least!

If we dig further into the FAQ though we discover Sin #2 (and the most egregious): the counting method. The yearly fic counts are NOT determined by filtering for a certain time period, they’re determined by simply taking a snapshot of the total number of fics in a ship tag at the end of the year and subtracting the previous end-of-year total. For example, if you check a ship tag on Jan 1, 2023 and it has 10,000 fics and check it again on Jan 1, 2024 and it now has 12,000 fics, the difference (2,000) would be the number of "new works" on this chart.

At first glance this subtraction method might seem like a perfectly valid way to count fics, and it’s certainly the easiest way, but it can and did have major consequences to the point of making the entire dataset functionally meaningless. Why? If any older works are deleted or privated, every single one of those will be subtracted from the current year fic count. And to make the problem even worse, beginning at the end of last year there was a big scare about AI scraping fics from AO3, which caused hundreds, if not thousands, of users to lock down their fics or delete them.

The magnitude of this fuck up may not be immediately obvious so let’s look at an example to see how this works in practice.

Say we have two ships. Ship A is more than a decade old with a large fanbase. Ship B is only a couple years old but gaining traction. On Jan 1, 2023, Ship A had a catalog of 50,000 fics and ship B had 5,000. Both ships have 3,000 new works published in 2023. However, 4% of the older works in each fandom were either privated or deleted during that same time (this percentage is was just chosen to make the math easy but it’s close to reality).

Ship A: 50,000 x 4% = 2,000 removed works Ship B: 5,000 x 4% = 200 removed works

Ship A: 3,000 - 2,000 = 1,000 "new" works Ship B: 3,000 - 200 = 2,800 "new" works

This gives Ship A a net gain of 1,000 and Ship B a net gain of 2,800 despite both fandoms producing the exact same number of new works that year. And neither one of these reported counts are the actual new works count (3,000). THIS explains the drastic difference in ranking between a ship like Steve/Bucky and Nick/Charlie.

How is this a useful measure of anything? You can't draw any conclusions about the current size and popularity of a fandom based on this data.

With this system, not only is the reported "new works" count incorrect, the older, larger fandom will always be punished and it’s count disproportionately reduced simply for the sin of being an older, larger fandom. This example doesn’t even take into account that people are going to be way more likely to delete an old fic they're no longer proud of in a fandom they no longer care about than a fic that was just written, so the deletion percentage for the older fandom should theoretically be even larger in comparison.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the author of this "study" KNEW the data was tainted and chose to present it as meaningful anyway. You will only find this if you click through to the FAQ and read about the author’s methodology, something 99.99% of people will NOT do (and even those who do may not understand the true significance of this problem):

The author may try to argue their post states that the tags "which had the greatest gain in total public fanworks” are shown on the chart, which makes it not a lie, but a error on the viewer’s part in not interpreting their data correctly. This is bullshit. Their chart CLEARLY titles the fic count column “New Works” which it explicitly is NOT, by their own admission! It should be titled “Net Gain in Works” or something similar.

Even if it were correctly titled though, the general public would not understand the difference, would interpret the numbers as new works anyway (because net gain is functionally meaningless as we've just discovered), and would base conclusions on their incorrect assumptions. There’s no getting around that… other than doing the counts correctly in the first place. This would be a much larger task but I strongly believe you shouldn’t take on a project like this if you can’t do it right.

To sum up, just because someone put a lot of work into gathering data and making a nice color-coded chart, doesn’t mean the data is GOOD or VALUABLE.

#ao3 #ao3 stats #psa #my words #fandom #I doubt anyone is even going to read this but I needed to get it out of my system and at least try to stop this from spreading #if you know me #you know I get Big Mad about misinformation #don't take anything at face value #do your own research

[starlithunter]

PSA

If you are in the US and do your taxes, use the official IRS site for free filing!

Many companies will advertise free filing and then claim you have deductions or needs that require their paid solutions, and they will not tell you until the end of the process when you are exhausted and want it to be over. These ones are fully free and approved by the IRS!

Save yourself money and stress.

#psa #taxes #irs #turbotax sucks #blazing this as a public service because no one taught me to do taxes properly #learn from my mistakes

[stil-lindigo]

it’s 10pm. do you know who you are?

#this piece is a twist on those old PSAs that used to play on American TV reminding parents to check up on their children #it’s 10pm #do you know where your children are? #I’m co-opting that phrase for this piece and also as a general title for a new comic project #it’s tonally gonna be really different from soliloquy down to three #which was my previous comic project centered around dark sapphic stories #10pm is gonna be really introspective which is kind of cathartic but also has the capacity to send me spiraling again if I’m being honest #so let’s see how this goes #digital art #stillindigo art #its 10pm #stillindigo comics

[bottombaron]

you know, i can handle a little bit of fun "Nandor is dumb" talk, but i have a net-zero tolerance for any implication that Nandor is not educated.

Nandor would have been incredibly educated in his lifetime.

even (or especially) as a soldier in the Islamic World. being a soldier was more like getting sent to boarding school that's also a military camp. they weren't just concerned with creating loyal fodder for war. they were building the next government officials, generals, accountants, advisors, etc. it was important that young men knew how to read, write, speak multiple languages, learn philosophy...sometimes even studying art and music was mandatory.

if he was nobility (and its most likely he was), take all that shit and multiply it exponentially. Nandor would have been reading Plato at the same age most people are still potty training. he would have been specifically groomed in such a way to not be just a brilliant strategist and warrior, but also diplomate and ambassador of literally the center of scientific and cultural excellence of the age.

so like yeah, he can be a big dummy sometimes, sure. but that bitch is probably more educated than any of us will ever be.

#wwdits #nandor the relentless #Nandor #what we do in the shadows #i think its obvious by how much Nandor loves to read that he grew up educated #it's one of my favorite character traits of his #anyways #this was just your local psa abt the depth of Nandor's character and intelligence #and how the medieval islamic world was like - so much more advanced than it's western counterpart it's hilarious how ppl mischaracterize it #(by hilarious i mean it makes me want to break something) #this was in my drafts lolol what did i read that made me vent this? idk #also 'islamic world' is just a term some historians use to describe a specific geographical location and historical age #kind of how 'western world' is used today #it doesn't mean it's specific to one religion or nation but the broader time and location #meaning that Al Qolindar or Persia or Ilkhanate or w/e you want to call where Nandor came from #the same expectations of education and it's vibrant social/cultural world remain an accurate image of the middle east in the medieval age #if you come from the west like me #think The Forum + The Library of Alexandria + Paris/Florence + and idk anything else u think of when u think of 'Western Excellence' #and then imagine of all of that in one place at one time and then u might get close to what the world Nandor was living in as a human

[aka-indulgence]

[stress]

#i usually Imagined this happening #but this happened a few days ago when someone asked me very specifically about my type like they want the gossip #and my brain screamed MONSTER #aka doodle #i get stressed when people ask me that question fdshjsdf #this has been another monsterfucker psa from aka thank you #+horns +tails +non human skin #maybe not from this earth (aliens) #(sweats like a sinner in church) #also WHY DONT THEY BELIEVE WHEN I SAY PERSONALITY FDFDH #happens every time people ask #(no longer eating in peace) #aka doodles

[mammutblog]

lrb until now i’ve never been in a fandom where people come in my inbox and dms to tell me that a blog i interact with ships something they think is problematic like? that’s some secret service cop behavior my dude. also idk u? like you come in here and go “your friend is cooking beef and i’m vegetarian!” like that’s literally my friend bro? you don’t even know me or my friend? i literally cannot help u if u think that’s somehow activism bro, just unfollow me, u literally don’t have to follow me, be free and be happy

#also it’s so funny when they phrase it like i don’t know what my friends be shipping #like as a psa like it’s something serious #like you think i’m stupid and you gotta help this poor silly little innocent blog from hanging out with the wrong kids #cop behavior #you gonna mansplain to me what my friends are posting on tumblr dot com?

[zerkjo-fr]

I may have forgotten about an adopt for a month so i drew the same Aether as a way to apologize for it LMAO .. theyre such fun little beasts to draw, very shaped

#flight rising #FR fanart #if you ever order an adopt from me and you don't receive it within a week or two PLEASE PM me ! #i dont mind + i wont be mad at you for wanting to know where yr paid for art is in production ^^ #which isnt at the op of this dragon but just a general PSA

[iguessthisisanewobsession]

Jack is under appreciated in the Fandom and it shows!

Like love Maddie, she’s a queen when she’s not traumatizing her son, but we sleep on Jack!

Like in both normal Danny phantom fandom and especially the dc x dp crossover.

More often than not Jack gets shoved into supporting character role in the fandom and I feel like this is a missed opportunity!

His main traits are loving his family and hunting ghost but he plays second fiddle to Maddie!

Love cool karate mom but we’re sleeping on the Himbo gun dad dammit!

Give me more character progression for him!

Make Jack make tough choices!

Have he have a crisis of faith!

Have him realize that Vlad doesn’t like him and is obsessed with his son and wife!

Have him ask what is more important, ghosts or family.

Have him choose family.

Have him run away with his kids in the dead of night.

Have him choose ghosts have him be the main antagonist

Have Jack chase after his missing family in a fucked up way of thinking he’s going save them!

Make him do something other than love wife and be tank antagonist!

He is basically Brucie Wayne if he was real and had a thing for guns!

Use Jack!

#like especially dc x dp #how many times have we seen good dad Jack in the dc x dp aus? #now how often do we see him as back up my wife as we dissect our pleading son #writing prompt #dp x dc #dc x dp #jack fenton #danny phantom #danny fenton #he kind of reminds me of Gomez from the Addams family #in a weird way #dp #PSA: please use Jack!

[tippenfunkaport]

FYI, I have also locked all my fanfics down to registered users only because of the AI scraping on AO3. I'm one of many fan creators doing this right now and I know it stinks for users without an AO3 account, but it's the only option writers have available to us at the moment to stop our work from being scraped and stolen.

If this makes you mad, the Federal Register is currently open to comments on AI accountability until June 12th, 2023.

It only takes a second to leave a comment to ask for legislation that works used in AI creations or training MUST secure the express consent of the original creator before they can be used. If we can get protections for artists, writers, musicians and everyone who creates that their work cannot be used in AI without their permission, we can go back to making fanworks freely available without fear of them being misused. Until then, we're stuck playing defense until the courts catch up.

(If you're a fan creator looking to do this as well, AO3 has a tool to let you do all your fics at the same time in seconds. On your dashboard, go to Edit Works and you'll be able to change the status on everything at once.)

If you missed the context, AO3 recently found that the archive was scraped for use in AI services like ChatGPT and Sudowrite. While they put in protections in December 2022 to try to stop it from happening in the future, it's not foolproof and there is nothing they can do about works already swiped prior to that date. The archive is recommending fan creators restrict their works to registered users only to prevent against additional large scale scraping in the future.

#ao3 #archiveofourown #archive of our own #ai #artificial intelligence #Sudowrite #tech news #fandom #fanfiction #fanfic writing #pro tip from me to you: you own the copyright to your fanworks #not the characters and details from the source material obviously #but your writing itself is yours and can be registered and protected as such #ChatGPT #tech bros #psa #important psa #ao3 writer

[gaylactic-fire]

Apparently no matter how many people complain about it the message just doesn't get through. So here's one last ditch effort to try and help people understand. I would appreciate it if the Linkverse communities spread this around.

Younger fandom members, newer fandom members and LoZ Tumblr newbies listen up!

Linked Universe is a Zelda AU created by Jojo56830. It has its own fandom surrounding the comic Jojo makes and is an entirely self-contained Zelda sub-fandom.

Linked Universe is NOT the catch-all name for every single AU involving the Links being grouped together.

Most people in the fandom refer to these AUs as "Linkverses" or "Links meet AUs", but they can simply just be called Zelda AUs.

Why does this distinction matter? Because tons of creators who also have their own Linkverse AUs repeatedly and often get their works tagged as "Linked Universe" by people reblogging their art.

This, plain and simple, is discouraging and disrespectful. These creators are trying to make their own projects and have undoubtedly done a lot of work to make their ideas distinct and unique. To tag their work as LU forcefully groups their work in with an unrelated AU, simply because both AUs share the same basic concept. Not to mention, it muddies the water and makes it harder for people to recognise these AUs as being distinctive at first glance.

That being said, I understand it can be confusing to tell which AUs are their own separate entity and which AUs (of AUs) are attached to Linked Universe.

As a general rule of thumb, posts that are not tagged as LU should not be tagged as LU (to see the original tags click on the poster's username). But if after that you are still confused, ask someone. Please PLEASE do not make assumptions. You have no idea how much those assumptions might hurt the artist or might cause them to outright block you.

So TLDR

Linked Universe is a story about Links meeting.

But not every story about Links meeting is Linked Universe.

Stop tagging every Link's meet AU you see with Linked Universe tags, because it's getting ridiculous at this point.

#fires posts #ramblings #linked universe #linkverse au #links meet au #Making a PSA post about funny elf stories being wrongfully tagged is definitely a chronically online moment from me #but i digress #also please no hatred to Jojo or LU in general none of this is her fault