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teenwolf-theoriginals · 1 year

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when writers talk about the likes vs reblog ratio, they don't do it for "attention" purposes. they do it because it's a huge problem that spirals like a domino effect and it becomes incredibly disheartening and frustrating.

likes don't tell the writer anything. did you even read the fic or just a few paragraphs? did you like the post to "save it for later"? liking only benefits the reader, not the writer. it doesn't tell the writer what you liked about their fic. it doesn't help the writer reach a wider audience so other people can discover/read their work. and it doesn't help the writer when it comes to maintaining a level of motivation and appreciation that often is achieved by the reader engaging with their fics - reblogging, commenting or sending a message.

let me paint a picture. in the last 3-4 days, i have gotten 150 likes for fics (all tommy shelby ones) and 5 reblogs...

of course, i am super grateful for any and all interactions, for people reading my fics and leaving comments here and there. but at the end of the day, writers need motivation. most of that comes from themselves. finding inspiration in their ideas, music, the show in general, talking to other writers, etc. but a writer can not sustain that motivation for long without the help of the reader/fandom. and some will say that at the end of the day a writer should "write for themselves" - they do. first and foremost, they write to express themselves, to explore things that weren't canon, to give other fans the chance to immerse themselves in something fun, thrilling and emotional. but writing can be such a lonely experience. and it's not selfish or wrong for a writer to wish/ask for more than just likes. to want more appreciation for the content they post which is free, accessible and long-lasting even after the writer stops writing.

please, do not think i am attacking or criticizing anybody who likes fics. but maybe, also pair that like with a reblog, or a comment (an emoji, couple of sentences, or a whole paragraph, doesn't matter), or use the anon feature to show some love to the writer. and you don't have to do it for every fic, but it's nice to do it for a majority of fics from your favourite writer(s). but spamming with likes, personally (i don't want to speak for other writers) leaves such a deflating feeling. and that feeling is very hard to get rid of. and it lingers, and manifests into a tiny voice that often whispers, "that fic wasn't good enough" or "what's the point in posting the next one or finishing all the other ones".

writers need that extra bit of love.

so whenever you can give your favourite writer(s) that extra bit of love, please, do so. because you never know how much that extra bit of love can mean to a writer who may be having a bad day or week or month. who may be questioning their writing skills. or who may just need a little reassurance.

#writing #i need to get this off my chest #been sitting with it for the last 3-5 days and its put me in a bad/meh mood #personal #rant

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flying-elliska · 4 years

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S5 Review pt.3 : the Mindboggling

Previously, I went over what I did and did not like about the season. There are still some things I have questions over or am on the fence about, plus a global opinion on the season :

The farm episode : yeah, so that was a fever dream, huh ? Honestly, I enjoyed it, overall. At that point I was so tired of the general drama that taking a step back felt good. It was extremely funny (even though the Fifi thing was like...a bit mean spirited, I still laughed.) I loved Papy Savary telling stories about his time in the army or his Jeanette, Basile waxing poetic about the countryside, Emma and her horse, Imane the city girl vs the chickens, the wheelbarrow...Comedy gold, as was Eliott making eyes at Lucas to keep his rabbit. The episode was completely gorgeous. I feel like it served the same purpose as the thrift shop clip in s3, a comedic-absurdist break in the tension to see things on the lighter side of life. But...I don’t think it worked as well. It was just long and weird and Arthur was pushed to the side. I was waiting for the boys to talk more and it didn’t happen. I feel like there was a lot more opportunity for shenanigans and group bonding to happen, but it felt very fragmented. At the end I was like...”so that was all ?” Idk what they smoked when they wrote that but I want some.

Social media : I won’t lie I loved the Elu pictures we got, they were gorgeous and so romantic but...they looked more like promotional pictures and putting them on the accounts of the characters was extremely unrealistic. I loved the mentions of space, cyborgs, anime, etc on Arthur’s insta, they were very thematically accurate and a good add to the story. But I feel the social media in general was underwhelming this season, like a lot of what they posted were just images they found on the internet, and there were times I expected them to post and...nothing. I feel like Skam France had a few moments of utter brilliance with their social media in S3 (enter cesar ! Eliott’s drawings ! Leave a light on ! Call your girlfriend ! First day of my life!!!) and then...nothing, like they weren’t sure how to integrate it to the story and didn’t want to spend too much on it. Too bad, although the roasting is funny.

The night time episode : I think the concept of it is absolutely brilliant (even though it was tiring lol, and I appreciate they warned us.) It’s again an amazing use of the real time format, like many of their innovations this season (like the alarms, etc). You could definitely feel Arthur’s progressive exhilaration, the lines blurring, the joy of being with people that understand him after getting excluded, breaking into the pool, etc. At the same time, since I didn’t like his thing with Noée...I was not having a lot of fun watching it. I liked that the night ended with him confiding in her about his father but to have her kiss him right away felt just...idk, inappropriate, and like it took away from the gravity of the moment. So...hmmm.

Foreshadowing s6 : Lola seems pretty intriguing. I liked the last clip, the way she stands outside the group, the way she seems to be such a problem for Daphne. I definitely think there is more going on at home than just sister rivalry. And I liked how Eliott’s position - close to the group but outside of it - mirrored Lola’s and I really hope we are finally get a friendship/mentorship at the center of a season. The repetition of Daphné having issues and refusing to talk to Basile got a bit old during the season, I have to say, but I am glad she finally confided in him. We are probably going to see Basile regularly next season and I am surprisingly happy with that. But, I am worried that shifting to an entirely new group and a new character is going to be very weird and I hope we are still going to see the old gang pass their bac and so on.

Conclusion

The first original season of a remake feels...experimental, in both good and bad ways. Given more space, they were able to be quite creative, to deepen characters, do things OG never could, integrate a bit more humor, specify their own style, and treat new subjects. At the same time, it illustrates exactly how and why the skam style of storytelling is damn difficult to replicate : they went too heavy at times, losing the delicate balance of drama and joy ; it lacked subtlety and follow through and the plot balance felt off ; there was not enough introspective moments and they weren’t as good getting us into the POV of the main. But, overall, I am still happy they got renewed - if only to see our favorite characters grow, struggle through new things, and ultimately thrive. They gave us a wonderful insight in an underrepresented community, some excellent moments of filmmaking and acting, a look at Elu as an established couple, some really good laughs and friendship moments, and a certain amount of closure for our main squad. For that, it’s definitely my second favorite season after s3, even though it didn’t come close to evoking the same emotions.

#skam france #skamfr s5 #my meta #arthur broussard #skam france meta #and thus concludes my essay #congrats if you made it through #whew that was cathartic to write #i feel like there wasn't enough discussion this season #like the good points weren't appreciated enough and the bad ones weren't engaged with critically #but here hopefully this does it a bit

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mallowstep · 2 years

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what's ur opinion on incestuous/abusive rarepairs? ive been seeing some talk abt it and im confused. if this is too personal or u don't want to answer for any reason, no pressure! hope ur doing well

okay, i've been thinking about this for a bit, and i appreciate the question. it means a lot to me, y'know, that you care to ask for my opinion.

there's a lot of angles to look at this from, but hey, i'm a utilitarian*. i think what's right is what minimizes harm and maximizes happiness.

* not a philosophy person, i just keep agreeing w my professor about utilitarianism.

so. i want to look at it from that angle, because i think that will keep us all on the level and straightforward. the rest of this will be under a cut, because some people don't want to engage with this in the slightest (valid), but i'm going to avoid as much internet discourse rhetoric as possible.

there's not really a great place to start with this, so let's do the housekeeping:

i'm going to skip over "no one HAS to like XYZ," because it's just a lot of words for something i think we can all understand. nothing i say is meant to imply anyone has to like or engage with any form of content.

i'm also going to be folding everything into abuse. incest is a form of abuse, not an issue i'm qualified to speak specifically to, and i'm trying not to overwork my wrists, so i'd like to save the characters.

i will not necessarily respond to follow-ups on this. bad faith asks will be deleted-and-maybe-blocked. good faith asks depend on the ask, how i'm feeling, etc., but you're welcome to send it.

now, onto the show.

my metric for judging anything is basically, "does this hurt other people?" and "does the person undergoing this fully understand the risks?"

in general, as long as the answers are no and yes (respectively), i'm probably fine with it being a thing that exists.

(ex) am i okay with recreational drug usage?

yes, as long as people are fully educated.

(ex) am i okay with high school football?

no, because teenagers are not fully educated about the risks, and even if they were, i don't think a fifteen year old is mature enough to decide if those are risks worth taking.

(ex) am i okay with people writing about abusive relationships?

yes, because it doesn't hurt others, and there really aren't many risks involved.

let me call the hypothetical audience member i use as a rhetorical device often...drew.

drew: the question wasn't about writing abusive relationships, it was about shipping.

(well, i'm making a quiet assumption it was.)

regardless, let's be frank, the sticking point for many people is shipping, so it's worth examining.

now, it's hard for me to ever make a statement that says shipping something is inherently bad. shipping is a loosely defined term, but it's still just an opinion, and an opinion isn't an action, so it doesn't have consequences, so i don't think it's wrong.

drew: you're being pedantic. opinions inform actions.

indeed they do, but holding that opinion still isn't wrong. acting on opinions might be, if it causes harm.

drew: so it's not wrong to have an abusive ship, but if expressing that causes harm, it would be wrong?

exactly, you get it.

now, i said writing above, specifically to set up the point that writing isn't necessarily shipping isn't necessarily publicly producing content. i think a lot of people will say, "this is okay, as long as you do it critically," or, "this is okay, but only if you don't share it." so i think...i think if you can't get to, "it's okay to hold abusive ships, and it's at least okay to privately make things about those ships," i don't think i can continue this conversation. i don't know how to get you to that point, if you weren't convinced by my little dialogue on opinions.

so i won't make you drag it out of me, is it wrong to produce content publicly?

let's consider:

if i post a fic about an abusive ship (and i have), what are the consequences of that?

there could be any, but...a quick search found me a fanfiction on ao3 with 5.8 million hits. that's roughly 0.07% of the world population, assuming each hit is from a unique individual, so even being obscenely generous, let's say fanworks, as a collective, affect 1% of people.

drew: hold on, what about other media? why are you limiting things to fanworks?

good question. because i have different opinions, because of a very different set of conditions. i'm focusing on fanworks because the question asked about that, and generalizing this argument doesn't work very well. my opinions on this are distinctly tied to the fact that fandom affects less than 1% of people.

drew: that's still a lot of people.

yes, but...look, fandom vs published media is a different discussion, alright? i'm going to move on from the numbers game, but i just want to make sure we have a good grip on the fact that fandom is not affecting the vast majority of the world.

back to the point, not a lot of people are reading fics. maybe a few hundred read my abusive ship fic. what are the harms?

well, one might be they get triggered. not posting would avoid that, but that would also avoid the potential benefit of someone feeling validated about their abuse. trigger warnings reduce the harm to almost nothing, while still providing that benefit.

drew: you're going to hinge your argument on trigger warnings? i know you've brought up how fandom used-to-be, when warnings were courtesies.

yeah, but i think making them a social norm was a good thing. drew, as a rhetorical tool, you hold no beliefs but the ones i give you to make a point, and in this point, it's simply that i don't like people assuming what i believe. oh, i state plenty of opinions. but don't infer based on that, or based on what other people who share similar opinions might believe. there are reasons i don't label myself.

more to the point, yes, i am. trigger warnings minimize harm, while allowing a work to still bring value to people who wouldn't get that value if it was never posted. maximizing happiness, minimizing harm.

moving on, another harm would be that an abuser could use it against a victim.

well, there's no way to stop that. if something is up, it exists to be used.

however, does me posting a work create more risk? no. even if everyone took down everything, there's still loads of published media that people could use. that's worse, because published media will present abuse as healthy.

drew: someone could do that in a fanwork.

right, which is why i think people should tag things.

drew: what if someone doesn't realize they're writing an abusive relationship?

then they'd still post it, if the norm was not to post abuse.

also, since published media often presents abuse as healthy, i would go as far as suggesting fanworks with tagged abuse can help people learn to recognize abuse. i don't know how defensible that argument is, but i can say, anecdotally, it is true.

some of you could probably list other harms, but i cannot, not off the top of my head, and i think you could probably trace enough of my logic to figure out the conclusion i'm going to come to: the harms just don't add up. the benefits outweigh the damages, and so i don't think there's anything wrong with it.

drew: i have some criticisms.

of course you do. i deliberately left space for them, because i thought this would be a more interesting way of discussing some of the nuances.

drew: first, you're assuming everyone will act in good faith and tag their works.

well, i'm not going to reiterate anyone who wouldn't tag would post abuse even if we banned it, especially since there's an easy refutation: we can just take banned topics down.

in fact, that was a refutation i ignored earlier.

but on ao3, if a fic has an untagged archive warning, and it's reported, the "creator chose not to use archive warnings" warning will get added to it. so we can solve that problem just as easily.

drew: so you think ao3's archive warnings are the only things worth tagging for?

getting aggressive, there. no, but i don't feel like splitting hairs, talking about the reasons ao3 might make decisions, even if there might be better ones...the point is simply that there's a solution to untagged works: if it's reported, add some kind of flag that this work might contain certain topics.

drew: but that's not very specific.

and it falls on people to decide whether or not they should take that risk.

drew: your argument puts a lot of weight on people reading tags and not having harm happen to them, instead of reading something accidentally, or...

well, yes. i said this implicitly earlier, but i also believe that you stop at the last point, if that makes sense. if there's a step between me posting and someone being harmed, we stop that step, not me posting.

i leave defending that as an exercise to the reader.

drew: okay, but you also didn't address uncritical works.

yeah, i know. i mean i did, implicitly, but i didn't say anything directly.

if a fic presents abuse in a positive/romantic light, but is tagged abuse? honestly, i think that's a net benefit. why is this abuse? it takes the reader doing thinking, yes, but an author can't control, nor be expected to control, how a reader views their work. i'm not responsible for that.

someone could always ignore my tags. someone could always not think. someone could view a healthy relationship as abusive. i can't control that.

ffs, last night, someone pointed something out to me, and i had to stop and go, "oh fuck, i'm not writing the healthy relationship i meant to be writing." and then faff around for an hour failing to fix that because i was exhausted. but more to the point, i want to be able to tag that work as fluff, so i'm going to have to fix it, but if i didn't?

i don't think there's anything wrong with posting it, and expecting someone to see a tag like "unhealthy relationships" and have to ask themselves why i used that tag. that's critical thinking, and it's good and healthy and, most importantly, how you learn to recognize abuse irl. you can know all of the signs of toxic, unhealthy, and/or abusive relationships (not all the same thing), and still be stuck in one, because you haven't been told how it feels. you've heard people say they didn't realize, or seen the cycle of abuse, but you didn't know how it would feel.

i'm not so arrogant as to say anything i write will do that. but i do know that works of fiction have done that for me before. i think it was two days ago that a friend wrote something that made me say, "oh, i have to think about something that happened to me."

and i can tell you, it's never someone saying, "this was bad, here it is:" that makes me personally feel like that.

drew: i still don't like it.

i know. i don't like lots of things. so i don't read them. sometimes i complain about them to my friends. sometimes i have complicated feelings. sometimes i like something, but i wish someone didn't do it like that.

part of life is accepting people will do things that make us feel uncomfortable. i will even argue that there are things that we might think are wrong, but don't do anyone harm, and part of life is accepting that. but whether or not you want to go that far...

drew: you're going to bring up the horror movie thing.

i'm going to bring up the horror movie thing.

you're one of three people: horror movie purist, horror movie neutral*, or horror movie hater.

* includes fan, i just like them, i don't like them, etc.

if you're a horror movie hater who thinks they just shouldn't exist, well, that's the rest of this post. but for everyone else, if i say, "watch a horror movie with the lights on," you're likely having one of three reactions.

the purists are upset. that ruins the experience. the haters are upset. they don't want to watch a horror movie. the neutrals don't see a point.

(and a few of you are either saying, "it's the way i like to watch them," or "ik where you're going with this and i like it." you are all excused early, have a nice day.)

if possible, i want you to give this a shot. you don't have to like it, but it's not going to kill you. no, you might never do it again, but...

if you're a purist, remember you don't have to do that again. someone else having that experience doesn't force it on you. it's not your life.

if you hate horror movies, grab a friend and laugh at it. i suggest "cabin in the woods," as it's a great movie for this purpose. it leans into everything i want you to get out of this, which is: even if i never want to do this again, i can understand that there's a reason other people might like this.

if you're neutral, just give it a go. i can't say you'll get anything terribly specific out of it, but i think it's a good experience for anyone.

drew: we good?

we good.

#mine #ask #anon #discourse #essay

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