Why The Fuck Did I Wake Up This Morning And The First Thing I See On My Youtube Feed Is A Pokemon World

Why the fuck did I wake up this morning and the first thing I see on my Youtube feed is a Pokemon World Champ trying to rizz me?

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Wolfe Glick Fancam

This right here. Read it, remember it well. This goes double for those like me who write primarily for obscure fandoms. I ain't touching most anime fandoms with a 10 foot pole so this is especially relevant.

The Tumblr writing community is dying.

It’s something I’ve noticed over the past two years of using this site. It was gradual, imperceptible at first, something that most would brush off as a silly concern, or fault Tumblr algorithm for. While it’s true that Tumblr’s engine leaves a lot to be desired, I’ve noticed that even popular blogs have started to dwindle in terms of interaction or motivation. There could be a lot of reasons for this, but the biggest two I’ve noticed, experienced myself, and asked fellow writers about is this: (1) content being stolen, and (2) lack of feedback or interaction. I’ve never seen any logical person defend content being stolen, so I want to address point 2 instead.

Lack of feedback and interaction. I’m not saying this on my behalf so much as I’m saying this for friends and smaller blogs who have lost motivation to write. I was looking at my yandere writing blogs list the other day and noticed that a good majority of them no longer write. I usually update the list every few months, and by that point, more and more writers have stopped writing entirely. This isn’t a problem confined solely to the yandere fandom; in fact, there’s less writing blogs in general these days, especially ones that are active. I used to run a very popular BNHA blog with some friends, but that dissolved after our content was stolen and our followers stopped interacting as much. Out of our 8,500 followers, we hardly got 0.015% notes (~128 notes) on an average post. Tumblr is to blame for the lack of eyes seeing our posts, for sure, but that also means that at least 128 people saw one post and didn’t leave a comment or ask. We were considered a big blog; imagine what it’s like on a small blog.

My friend recently made a post that summed this up perfectly: 

“I’ve seen people say “Be grateful that people even lurk on your page.” and, while I get the message they’re trying to say, it’s more dismissive and hurtful in my opinion. Like you’re saying, “Oh your writing is mediocre, you should be grateful people even LOOK at it.”

Me personally? I’ve heard the argument that AO3 is a better place to post fanfics, and while that might be true, I’ve had friends experience firsthand the lack of interaction there too. I’ve heard the argument that interacting with some writers is intimidating (me included). I’ve heard that argument that followers might be too shy to interact. I’ve heard the argument that writers should write for themselves and not for views / likes / reblogs / etc, and while that’s ideal, it’s not sustainable for everyone. What works for one writer won’t work for another, but you know what will? Interaction.

That comment or ask that took you 2 seconds to write? We remember it. That reblog with the compliments in the tags? We remember it. Every single ‘named’ anon we get (heart anon, sunflower anon, etc)? We remember them. And the best part is? It’s actually easier to do these things on Tumblr since you have the option to send anonymous asks or make a sideblog specifically for reblogs! Trust me, whether the lack of interaction is the cause of a lack of motivation or what have you, every writer appreciates feedback (don’t be shy to offer some critique or compliments) or even a simple keyboard smash with some emojis. Even sitting down for 5 min a day per week to comment on your favorite writers’ new pieces makes a huge difference. Personally, since Tumblr’s activity feed is beyond terrible and I have over 1,500 posts, I don’t always see new reblogs or comments on my content; asks though? Always see those, can never go wrong with those. If you don’t want to reblog or leave a comment, then you can never go wrong with an anonymous ask. 

As my wise friend says: writing is an art, and in order to improve that art, we need other people’s eyes to see what we don’t.

For the sake of every writer (past, present, and future) on this platform, please share this post.

Aye man your writing is really damn good. Like actually stupid good. Not just request stuff either, like your writing for Six was also really damn good. Got me frothing more than a whopper. Just wanted to say that cause fandom writers dont get enough love. Good day.

Anon you have no idea how much this made my day, and I finally made progress towards learning Japanese and getting a new job today. Seeing other people able to appreciate the stuff I mostly just made for myself and phantomfield is super flattering since y'all don't have the full context behind Six and Four that we do. If it's in high enough demand and the inspiration hits there's still more facets of him I wanna explore, who knows...?

But I'm getting ahead of myself! If you're new here, glad to have you here and hope you stick around. The inbox will hopefully open tomorrow and I'm gonna have to start making progress towards restoring my March workflow...

One request left, soon the horde will be upon you.

I might need to use that bomb shelter I've had handy for a while now...

Thinking about the Blazblue mom tier list. I feel like first thing Noel thinks about when she finds out she's pregnant is how her boobs will finally get bigger.

Noel:

Ya know, chat, sometimes you just get blocked for the stupidest things imaginable.

Like getting blocked for saying a semi-positive thing about Trump and then being assumed of being a Trump supporter. That's always a goodie.

Apparently some people just can't process the fact that despite having plenty of reasons to be hated, he wouldn't throw away billions of dollars we don't have to something that doesn't involve us.

I don't wanna get political and shit on this blog but that really brings out who the children around here really are.