Rynling R&D

I think this has died down over the past week, but a recent trend on Tumblr has been to create movie posters and fan art for Goncharov, a film noir crime thriller that doesn’t exist. The concept is vaguely this: a heist where everyone is beautiful and dangerous and gay.

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It’s been really nice to see a beautiful outpouring of art on Tumblr since people returned to the site after the Twitter debacle, but I also get the distinct sense that a finger has curled on a monkey’s paw somewhere.

I saw one of those posts saying there’s no Discourse™ here
https://corseque.tumblr.com/post/700567828007419904/you-all-must-never-have-been-on-twitter-and-are

You all must never have been on twitter and are imagining that the terrible drama you’ve seen on tumblr could possibly, in any world, compare to the drama that happens every hour when there’s an actual algorithm that causes drama and puts inflammatory posts directly in people’s faces without them following anyone involved, just so people click more.

Once again Corseque has the right of it.

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The experience of ADHD is having all sorts of useful strategies to overcome executive dysfunction disorder… until suddenly none of them work.

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Back in grad school, I had a close friend who wrote stunningly gorgeous fanfic. She posted some of her shorter stories on AO3, but she kept the majority of her longer pieces to herself. She said she wouldn’t be able to deal with it if her work didn’t immediately get positive feedback. I didn’t understand where she was coming from at the time, but I’m starting to get it. The weight of disappointment is cumulative, and it can be difficult to compartmentalize the psychological damage. Like, if nobody cares about your best and most compelling work, what’s the point of doing anything?

I should probably say that this isn’t a cry for help or anything. Despite everything, I’m doing my best. I'll get where I want to go eventually. I just wanted to try to explain what this headspace is like while illustrating why executive dysfunction disorder has nothing to do with being irresponsible or lazy or disorganized.

I’ve been thinking about my compulsion to apologize for listening to the My Favorite Murder podcast and playing Dream Daddy, which was co-produced by Game Grumps. There’s actually nothing wrong or even “problematic” about either of them. Both My Favorite Murder and Game Grumps are creator-owned production companies, and really the only thing that’s problematic about them is that they’re successful enough to have their own fandoms. It’s the fandoms that are the problem.

I get the feeling that, when people say that they hate My Favorite Murder or Game Grumps, what they’re really saying is that they hate the fandom. Or sometimes bullshit will arise in the fandom that the creators then feel the need to respond to, as their user-supported income model is partially based on the illusion of accessibility. Unfortunately, no matter how professionally this communication is handled, it still adds fuel to the fire of the discourse.

And it’s all discourse. These creators aren’t exploiting their fans, who get content for free regardless. They’re not exploiting their employees. They’re not sexually harassing or assaulting their fans or employees. They’re not promoting or apologizing for people who sexually harass or assault their fans or employees. They’re not promoting or apologizing for evil corporate platforms. They’re not promoting bigotry, hate speech, or libertarianism – and this is actually kind of a big deal when so many creator-owned media production companies are successful precisely because they promote bigotry, hate speech, and libertarianism.

I’m not saying that the people behind Game Grumps and My Favorite Murder didn’t record stupid shit when they were just starting out, but I also feel like this stupid shit should be viewed in the context of the good intentions of the creators, who apologize and learn from their mistakes. There are so many creators who are actively trying to hurt people or defend the stupid shit they’ve said that it feels unfair to focus on punishing creators who are willing to acknowledge their mistakes. In fact, I think genuinely evil creators are allowed to thrive unchallenged because the fandoms of relatively good creators are so obsessed with attacking each other.

I know I’m not saying anything new. But as for myself, sometimes I like things that are popular, and I don’t care about the personal lives or social media presence of their creators. Following celebrities is always going to be a game of attrition, as is separating yourself from their work and becoming a fan of their fandom. Idk, if no actual people are being hurt, maybe it’s okay to take a break from social media discourse and just enjoy things.

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Critical race theory is extremely nuanced, and it’s by no means monolithic. Just about the only generalization you can make concerning this vast and diverse body of scholarship is that it’s intended to make the world a kinder (or at least less cruel) place. Critical race theory is not a blunt club that you can use to smack people down if they rise too high, and it’s certainly not a tool that should be used to silence minority voices or erase minority representation.

This is to say that I think I’m done engaging with the “critical race” conversation as it currently exists. In this house we practice critical love and appreciation.

I'd like to do Yuletide this year!

Fandom nominations are open from now until the end of September, and the announcement post is here.

I've been obsessed with Hollow Knight for the past few months, so I wanted to nominate it, but I found that there are well over a thousand qualifying stories for the fandom. I guess I could have nominated the specific characters I want to read about, but what I really want is "a story that is not 400 words and a story that is not 40,000+ words." People write a lot of drabbles for the fandom, and also a surprising number of novellas, and I just want to read a solid short story on a clear theme written by someone who isn't one of the authors who dominates the search filters. Maybe it might be a better idea to wait until the next round of the Press Start exchange for this request.

I recently read an academic article comparing anti-fandom to a cult:
https://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/2147/2829

While I don’t deny that a lot of the behavior associated with anti-fandom involves social coercion – bullying, basically – I think it might be disingenuous to call anything related to fandom “a cult.”

What defines a cult as such is that it isolates members and, by means of that isolation, controls every aspect of their lives – where they live, what they eat, what time they wake up and go to sleep, who they talk to, who they marry, what level of education they receive, and so on. Cults aren’t scary because they believe in aliens or whatever; they’re scary because they physically entrap people and then force them into genuinely dangerous situations.

When it comes to fandom… People know they can just turn off the computer, right?

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I’m currently writing the third-to-last chapter of Malice.

I’ve been working on this novel for a little more than two years, and I think it’s going to weigh in at around 115,000 words, which is a respectable length. Along the way, I’ve put each individual chapter through multiple rounds of editing, responded to hundreds of comments, and commissioned fifteen illustrations. As far as trashy monster romance fanfiction goes, I’ve put a lot of energy into this project.

But it’s difficult. This chapter is the climax of the novel in every way that matters, and I’ve been struggling with how to approach it ever since I came up with the initial concept for the story. I’m not the most talented writer to begin with, and this chapter is especially tricky to write.

Even if I do manage to pull it off, though, it doesn’t matter. I feel like this story never really found a readership, and it’s almost certainly going to be forgotten as soon as it stops updating and gradually falls to the bottom of the tags. And that’s really difficult to process, that even my best work just... isn’t that good, maybe.

I’m not complaining. I mean, I developed my writing and editing skills and met some friends along the way, and that’s amazing. But facing my own lack of success and possible lack of talent every time I sit down to finish this story isn’t easy. In fact, it’s hardcore depression-inducing, and that’s not a joke.

This is why I want to say how much the kudos people leave on this fic mean to me. I see and treasure every single one of them, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that looking forward to emails from AO3 was the only way I was able to get through the relentless horror of the past two years.

It may seem like such a small and insignificant act to leave kudos on a story on AO3, but honestly, it means the world to me – and probably to a lot of other writers as well. It’s wild to say this, but sometimes all it takes is just the simple click of a button to be a hero.

I've been lazy about this recently, but for years I posted and reblogged things on Tumblr at regularly scheduled intervals throughout the day. My account on Tumblr exists so that I can scroll through the front page of my own blog when I'm bored or stressed out. My main criteria for what I reblog when is therefore the creation of eye-pleasing color coordination on the vertically-scrolling column, but there are some loose themes. No Ganondorf before 9:00pm, for example.

Because people are petty and awful, I would generally lose one or two followers almost every time I reblogged art that wasn't 100% professional and polished. Around 3:00pm EST was (and probably still is) a general deadzone on Tumblr, so I took advantage of that to reblog the work of emerging artists with supportive comments in the tags.

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So this is why I try not to interact with the posts of anyone who has an "immature" art style. I also don't know how old anyone is on AO3, which is one of the main reasons I started to move away from that site as well.

I just needed to get that off my chest so I can get over it and move on, because damn this nonsense has been living in my head rent-free for the past five years.

Ask Polly: How Am I Supposed to Make Friends in My Late 20s?
https://www.thecut.com/2014/08/ask-polly-how-do-i-make-friends-in-my-late-20s.html

So the first thing you have to do is accept that, despite appearances, you’re not all that different than most people your age. The mid- to late-20s are often an apex of friendless desperation. To make matters worse, people feel very self-conscious about their friendlessness at that age, as if everything should’ve fallen into place a long time ago. Considering how often urban, career-focused Americans move around and turn their lives upside down in their 20s, you’d think most of us would know better.

I've been seeing a lot of posts on Tumblr recently (like this one) setting 25 as an arbitrary cut-off age for tolerance of bad behavior. The underlying message seems to be that, by 25 years old, you should have your shit together and shouldn't be fucking around in fandom.

Dangerous and toxic behavior shouldn't be tolerated or excused at any age, of course. Saying that young people (or neurodiverse people, or people who are mentally ill or chronically ill or what have you) have no control over their behavior is basically saying that they're subhuman animals with no rational judgment or impulse control, which is both offensive and untrue. Putting that aside.

The idea that you have to have your shit together by the time you're 25 years old is wild. I feel like 25 is actually the age when a lot of people's shit starts to fall apart, honestly.

While you're in high school and college, you have a structured set of goals and multiple ready-made groups of peers. For the first few years out of college, you likely still have structured career goals and probably still keep in touch with many of your friends. By the time you hit 25, though, things start to get weird. A lot of your friends are pairing off and getting married, and some are even buying houses and having kids, which can create subtle conflicts and a lot of pressure. You're probably also, for the first time in your life, surrounded by people who aren't your age and don't share your values and life experiences. Your relationship with your family will probably change as you start being expected to pay for expensive things you formerly took for granted, like car insurance. After working in entry-level positions for a few years, you might be considering a career change. You might have even been fired from a "real" job for the first time. You might make a terrible life decision and apply to grad school. You might move to another city, or to the suburbs, or to a different timezone altogether.

25 is an incredibly awkward age, and it takes time to figure out how to be an adult. Some people are innately blessed with wisdom (and money, and a supportive family), but most of us need about ten years or so to get our shit together.

Again, I'm not excusing the behavior of anyone who is creepy or hateful online, but to suggest that 25 is the age when you should stop being in fandom and stop trying to make friends with people who share your interests is fucked up.

And "discrimination" is a strong word, but I really do feel like giving 25 as a cut-off point is ignoring the realities of a lot of people coming from marginalized identities and communities who just don't have the time or money or emotional energy to devote to their interests and hobbies (or social media in general) until they're a bit older.