#i'm simply catering to all potential audiences | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

let-us-cultivate-our-garden · 11 months

Note

How did The Owl House manage to attract plenty of praise and one of the biggest and most active fandoms I've ever seen even though the cancellation is not the source of all the issues present in the series? I've asked this question multiple times on Discord but I'd like to see someone elaborate on this topic in a manner that you can't on chatrooms, message boards, and Twitter.

A lot of shows have big fandoms despite having major narrative flaws; what keeps these shows afloat is that they provide something that the audience wants. In TOH's case, the show is a fun, fantasy adventure with unabashed queer rep that caters to a young audience.

The Owl House is the first major cartoon show that puts its protagonist in a sapphic romance and explores that instead of using it for queer-baiting or waiting until the end of the series for the couple to get together.

That's huge.

Now, whether Amity and Luz's relationship is healthy or well-written is a question for more critically-minded fans, the rest just appreciate what the show offers and celebrate that.

And that's okay.

You don't need to analyze a show to death in order to enjoy it, in fact most don't. Most fans just enjoy the show for its surface level elements and don't really think about the themes. For those that do, it's fun analyzing their favorite show for deeper elements, characterization, narrative tropes, etc.

Outside of simply enjoying the show, many fans have claimed that they felt "seen" by the show; whether that was seeing a poc character in an active role, the queer rep, or defeating the villain character who reminds them of their bigoted family members, the show has a lot of emotional elements that people connect to. If a show has already emotionally resonated with you, it can be difficult to look at its flaws or worse, seeing legitimate criticism of the show can feel like a personal attack on you.

Personally, I joined the TOH fandom late and didn't get emotionally invested with it (except for ONE character), so I'm able to look at it from a distance and spot the flaws. Now, a person can both love a show deeply AND recognize its shortcomings.

Despite all of my criticism against the show, The Owl House isn't a bad show; it's still fun and engaging but for me, it is riddled with missed potential and has significant structural issues.

But that's just me. Other fans either don't see the problems or blame them on something else. And that's fine. Fandom is extremely fickle and what makes a show accrue a large following is complex and varied.

I see The Owl House as like candy, looks and tastes great but not very substantive. It's a show that never really challenges its audience but it does make them feel good. And for many people, that's perfectly alright.

#asks #toh critical #toh criticism #the owl house

61 notes · View notes

henwibun · 9 months

Text

I can't even begin to explain how exhausted I am with the current state of social media.

Regardless of my number and reach, I just find it so annoying how decentralized everything is. I no longer feel like I have one stable place to post my art and promote my work.

I've always found it distracting to think about how well a peice would do or how well topic x would do over topic y. But no matter how much I can pretend not to care, it kind of just lingers in the back of my mind because of how much of a necessity socials are for this line of work. Of course I can just fully ignore it. Or I can learn what does well in order to make an informed decision of what it is that I am ignoring.

But with no clear alternative to Twitter (oop- X, didn't mean to deadname 💀) there are too many different sites with different demands for me to keep up with. Instagram is too busy trying to be tiktok, tiktok would require me to split my attention further into some sort of video content, threads is barely populated, and tumblr feels the comfiest but it lacks the audience that Twitter provided. I'm not sure where all of the potential clients are going to go, since non-artists probably won't find any of these options as good to browse, unfortunately.

I just simply don't have the time to cater to each of these socials' needs. I wish it wasn't a necessity for me to attempt to live off of my dumb silly little drawings and vtuber models, and yet here we are. I hate to be so /negative but it's just so AAAAAAAAAAAAA

#indie vtuber #digital art #vartist #text post #rubbishbun #rubbishrambles

2 notes · View notes

musical-chick-13 · 4 months

Note

Thoughts on subtextual yuri?

See, a lot of people write off subtext as "cowardly" or like...a way to claim plausible deniability so creators can still...cater to the homophobes or avoid controversy or avoid Getting Gay In Their Serious Heterosexual Show? Which, I'm sure there's plenty of that, because there's plenty of homophobia in the world. If that's the only reason, I do genuinely hate it. But I think subtext can be very valuable, and I think it can even be more in line with the established story/characters than stating their relationship outright. I'm going to use "yuri" broadly here, in the sense of "media of all kinds about women being romantically/sexually involved" as opposed to a specific genre of manga/anime.

Sometimes, creators (especially of children's/family media) have to rely on subtext to get any type of depiction of women in love/dating/etc. to be shown at all. (This is due to the continued view of queer relationships as Inherently Adult™/inappropriate for children, and/or the higher-ups wanting to avoid members of their audience who don't want to see queer people in stories kicking up a fuss.)

If a work qualifies as a period drama or something similar and seeks to represent what it might have been like for some queer women during that time, subtext can be useful. Obviously there WERE some wlw couples who spent their lives together as lovers/girlfriends/wives/etc. (we have!! always been here!!!!!). But I'm sure for some of them, the most they could express their attraction to women (or the most they felt comfortable expressing their attraction to women) was through subtlety. Comments or gestures of physical affection that could, through plausible deniability, be interpreted as non-romantic/non-sexual. That would go over the heads of people who weren't interested in acknowledging gay people or who actively shunned them. Even simply passing under the radar of hostile outsiders while still being able to have some sort of connection with another woman. I think the stories of these women are still valuable to tell, as they are still authentic queer experiences. We need a wide breadth of queer stories.

And if you have a character who is extremely repressed or not in a position (for whatever reason) to understand her attraction to women, or even a character who doesn't outwardly express emotion very much, it might make more sense from a characterization standpoint to keep her relationship(s) with other women grounded in subtext. Again, there are as many queer experiences as there are queer people, and I think they all deserve to be represented.

Lastly...I think subtext is still resonant in the present, even with modern-day characters. I'm speaking from both my own experience and from testimonials from other sapphics, but a lot of trying to navigate finding other queer women (as partners of any kind and as friends, actually) is evaluating conversations/interactions to determine the state of your relationship. Testing the waters through innocuous comments with queer undertones. Being careful about how you approach various subjects or physical affection or any one of a myriad of interactions until you're reasonably sure the other woman will respond positively. Plenty of us do still rely on subtextual conversations/interactions in real life, as a way to keep ourselves safe, preserve existing relationships, or even simply to make the idea of potential rejection less painful. (And this is especially true for teenagers--and other groups--who are still dependent on other people for basic needs and financial support. You want to be able to express your identity, but you also don't want to risk getting cut off by people who are providing you with food/shelter/transportation/money for emergencies/etc.) "Subtext" in (potential) sapphic relationships is a real thing people experience. And as such, I think representing it in fiction is worthwhile, too.

Tldr: Go yuri. Even subtext. Sometimes especially subtext.

#on subtext #multi t(ASK)ing #mel screams about fictional ladies again #me + writing too much about media: this too is yuri

1 note · View note

freelosophy · 6 months

Text

I need to vent #1 - Call of Duty. pt1

Interested in making money on CoD rather than spending it? Good. Then there is only one thing you need. A law degree.

(just a note here, there's not much this has to do with philosophy. If that's what you're here for, I'm sorry to disappoint today. However, this is what I needed to write about today and so I did. I hope you enjoy nonetheless)

"Activision-Blizzard" and "prioritizing revenue over its dedicated fans" come hand in hand to a lot of Call of Duty's audience these days. In case this isn't something known to you, a quick look at Activision's marketing decisions and, in turn, player feedback on these decisions, should make that picture clearer for you. How could such a strategy work if the players don't respond well to it, you ask?

Simple. Because the players that care about the game enough to get involved in community feedback, YouTube videos, Reddit posts, etc., are usually the "hardcore fans" of the franchise. They are the ones that have invested daily hours, some of them throughout several years if not decades, into Call of Duty. But they are also the ones making up only a minority of the games' total player count. Most pockets, ehm.. sorry, I meant players, are the casual type. The 15-year-old play-after-school spend-parents'-money-on-microtransactions type. That is where most of Activision's revenue comes from (source).

I sense another question incoming. "What's wrong with that then?" Well, these people, being the casual players, they are not as good at the game as the hardcore fans are. Now, this basically puts Activision in a position, where catering to players, who are bad, is advantageous from an economic point of view. What could possibly be the result of that? (I know, I'm going overboard with the questions but allow me this surely last one.) Games specifically designed so that you are at an advantage if you are bad at them, and at a disadvantage, when you get good. Kinda counter-intuitive, no? (I had to, sorry.) If you want to know more about how this works and in what areas this makes itself known, tell me in the comments. I'll be more than happy to make a pt2 of this rant. However, back to the topic at hand.

I don't suppose there is anything wrong with this method of theirs. I mean, I very strongly feel that there is but at the same time they are a company. An entity, which purpose, however much one might (dis)like it, is to make money. So.. technically, nothing wrong with this.

What is wrong, however, is how immune to feedback Activision-Blizzard got, in part because of their fans making their disgust in the abovementioned policy known. Loudly and for years at this point.

What is wrong is that there are other policies, more outrageous and potentially even outright criminal, that they've got going in full effect. And nobody makes them do anything about it.

And the one I have noticed today, the one this post was supposed to be centered around (yeah, yeah), is them selling their old games. Selling their old games for full price. Selling games that DO NOT WORK for the intentions for which you bought them or are SO RIDDLED WITH CHEATERS that they might not only be UNPLAYABLE but might also be an actual PRIVACY SAFETY HAZZARD to you.

Now, selling largely multiplayer games that no longer have a player-base big enough for you to actually play their multiplayer, seems an awful thing on its own, nevertheless, it's not criminal yet. But selling games, where it is an everyday occurence to come across multiple different cheaters, who reveal your personal device's IP in the game's public chat? I do not claim to know all the laws but this simply has to be breaking at least one of them, right?

An example of this is Black Ops 3. An eight-year old game that has so many cheaters in it that out of the 5 games I played after I installed it today, there was a cheater in ALL OF THEM. This is a game currently (as of 30.10.2023) being sold for 59.99 Euro on Steam. A game, where you log on, join a lobby, and quite likely get your IP address exposed publicly. 5 times out of 5, in my experience. And Black Ops 3 is of course not the only proverbial culprit, when it comes to this.

How in the mother and father of all that is hell-adjacent is this possible? Which leads me back to my initial thought. If you're someone with a law degree and the willingness to stand up to what's wrong, even when done by a tech giant, this ought to be sure and good money for you. Create online posts, gather witness statements and data from people like me (there are bound to be thousands of us), and consider taking action should you find this issue requires it. Because there just has to be some law saying that selling a seemingly broken product that potentially puts your private information in danger is not legal. Am I crazy for thinking that?

Please, if you are someone fitting said description, I welcome you to go get rich.

PS: all the mights and potentiallies are a help in preventing me from getting sued for defamation or something, which I can totally imagine Activision doing. I feel very strongly what I've written to be true, HOWEVER, I do not know my way around law and all that is said above comes from my experience and my own reasoning. I do not claim any of the information I give to be factual (eeh, I mean at least some of it is but whatever :D), I can only say I firmly believe it. All I am intending to do with this post is to release the tention built up in me from playing Activision's last years' shitty SBMM titles, and to try and make others aware of what I think could potentially ("could" and "potentially", I really got ya there, Acti) be a wrongdoing.

#blog #blogging #tumblog #censorship #call of duty #activision #blizzard #activision blizzard #black ops 3 #i’m outraged #controversial #aweful #rant

0 notes

pens-swords-stuff · 3 years

Note

hello! most of what i've seen on writeblr has been original content, and while it's definitely something i'll get into someday, right now my focus is on fanfiction, and i'm struggling to find a space in the community. do you have any tips on how to structure a wip post for fanfic writers and/or writeblr tips for fanfic writers in general?

Fanfiction exists in a weird place in the Writeblr community. It’s not because it doesn’t belong in the Writeblr community because I believe it definitely does — it’s because you will likely find a greater audience within the fandom side of tumblr rather than the writing side. This isn’t because Writeblr hates fanfiction or looks down upon it; in fact, I’ve seen a ton of love and support for fanfiction in the community. Many of us write fanfiction too! I have several fanfiction WIPs for different fandoms.

It all comes down to your audience. If you write Star Wars fanfiction and post about it in the Star Wars fandom, chances are people there will be more interested in reading it because they’re already huge fans of Star Wars. Everyone in the Star Wars fandom is engaging in it because they love it and are looking for more content! I would guess that most fanfiction writers post about their works within the fandom for this very reason.

On the other hand, if you post Star Wars fanfiction in the writeblr community, you don’t know how many people are Star Wars fans. You will definitely find people who like Star Wars and will want to read it! You will probably find some other people that don’t know much about Star Wars, but are willing to read your fanfiction regardless. But there is also a significant number of people in Writeblr that don’t know or care much about Star Wars, and will be less likely to read fanfiction about it.

Do you see what I mean?

Fanfiction absolutely has a place in Writeblr, and I will fight anyone who says that it doesn’t belong. However, it’s also a numbers thing. If you post your fanfiction in the fandom community, almost 100% of your audience in the fandom are people that are fans of the source material. If you post your fanfiction in the Writeblr community, only a fraction of people in the community are fans of whatever it is you’re writing fanfiction for.

Here’s some of the advice I have for fanfiction writers posting about it in Writeblr:

Engage in both the fandom and writeblr communities

Not every writeblr needs to be a ‘pure’ writeblr where you only post about writing. You could run a hybrid blog, where you post about both writing and fandom content. You could also have a fandom blog and a writeblr blog where you engage in them separately. Find friends both in the fandom community and the writeblr community!

This way, you can maximize your audience. You have some writing friends that you can talk about writing with, and you have some fandom friends that would love to read your fanfiction. Maybe some will overlap, maybe they won’t. But you get support from both communities rather than missing out on one or the other.

Find Writeblrs that are also fans

They are out there! I promise you, there are people who run writeblr blogs that are also fans of whatever it is you’re writing fanfiction for. You do however, have to find them. Chances are, they won’t come to you initially.

This can be as simple as asking around to see if anyone likes it! Find a fellow writeblr fan and you can make friends with them. You might also recommend it to some people and see if you can create new fans. If you have a hybrid blog and you post about the fandom, you might be able to introduce it to some writeblrs and make fans out of them!

Make your fanfiction accessible to people who aren’t fans

If you don’t want to cater your fanfiction to people who aren’t familiar with the source material, you don’t have to.

But if you are wanting to pull in a large audience from the Writeblr community where not everyone is a fan, you will have a lot more luck if people who have never heard of your fandom can understand and enjoy your project.

What information do non-fans need to know to enjoy your fanfiction? How can you make that information easily digestible? Does it involve spoilers for if they ever want to give the source material a shot? Why should they read it if they don’t care about the source material? These are important questions that you need to be able to answer if you want to pull in some new people.

Part of this might involve adding some more description and information within the actual fanfiction. Original fiction feeds information to the reader to help them understand the world. You can do that for your fanfiction too!

Another part of it is adding information into your WIP intro.

In your WIP intro, include all the information that intros for original projects do! Title, genres, synopsis are the main important points to hit generally.

Also consider including:

The Fandom: Be upfront about the fact that it’s a fanfiction, and what fandom it’s for.

The type of fanfiction: Is it an AU? Canon-compliant? Fix-it fic? Fluff? One shot? [Insert other fanfiction types here]? This information is important to helping potential readers understand how much information they might need to know. Also keep in mind: not everyone is part of fanfiction communities, so they may not know what common fanfiction terms and genres are.

Information they may need to understand the fanfiction: Do they need to know anything about the source material to enjoy it? If they don’t, say so! If they do, give them a rundown of what they need to know, or point them somewhere where they can get it.

Spoilers: Does it spoil anything? If it does, let them know what it spoils so they can make an informed decision about whether to read it or not.

Tropes, themes, and other points of interests: You are trying to entice people who don’t know the source material into reading your fanfiction. You need to give them a reason to! By talking about the tropes and themes that you’re writing about, it gives people an ‘in’. Maybe they won’t read a fanfiction of something they don’t know, but if they know that their favorite trope is a huge part of it, that might convince them to give it a shot.

Be realistic about your expectations

Not everyone is going to read your fanfiction and not everyone is a fan of the source material. That’s okay!

You will make some writeblr friends that love and support you, but they may not read your fanfiction because they’re not a fan of the source material. That is also okay.

There might be a narrower audience in Writeblr, but it’s absolutely possible to find an audience here! It might involve a lot of luck, persistence and patience, however.

Be kind and patient with yourself

Fanfiction writers absolutely belong in the Writeblr community. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t let yourself tell you otherwise either.

Things won’t always go your way, and you might get really frustrated and discouraged sometimes. That’s okay. Take care of yourself, give yourself the grace and love you need to work through it. Take breaks as needed, and don’t beat yourself up too hard! A lot of writeblr is based upon luck and dedication. You’ll find your audience someday.

As a final reminder: Fanfiction writers are real writers and belong in the writeblr community. It is not a lesser form of writing, it is simply a different form.

Remember, all writing advice is subjective! Don’t take this too seriously. This is just one person’s opinion.

If you’d like to ask me for advice on writing or running a writeblr, please check out my Ask Guidelines and FAQ first.

Ask Guidelines | FAQ | Advice Masterlist

#writing #writeblr #fanfiction #writing advice #writeblr advice #fanfiction advice #undine answers stuff #undine gives advice #Anonymous

239 notes · View notes