Amara D'Angeli

The thing is, there’s no way to know where these people are coming from. In the before, when fandom was more in the corners we all knew about, you could search LJ or a message board or whatever social bookmarking site we were using. You could join the community and participate.

You could get a little dopamine hit by seeing someone tell their friends why they loved your story.

Anymore, those recs are hidden in discords, or in tiktoks or instagram slideshows that you can’t search for. They’re inaccessible, not discoverable unless you’re already there. You may never know why 27 people left kudos on an old story of yours, what they liked and found in your writing. You just get the thumbs up and a kinda lonely feeling, cause these could be your people. You could like them, maybe. You could be friends.

But you’ll never find out why they stopped by, or what people are saying about you behind your back, and that’s sad.

Viscous/vicious – Viscous is generally used to describe the consistency of blood or other thick liquids. Vicious is used to describe something or someone who is violent. 

Piqued/Peaked/Peeked – To pique someone’s interest is to catch or tease their attention. When something peaks, it reaches its total height or intensity. To peek (at) something is to look briefly, or glance. 

Discrete/Discreet – this is a tough one. Discrete means to be separate, or distinct, i.e., two discrete theories. Conversely, when someone is discreet, they are being secretive or cautious to avoid attention. 

Segue/Segway – one is a transition between things, the other is a thing you can ride at the park and definitely fall off of.

Conscious/Conscience/Conscientious – to be conscious is to be awake, i.e., not unconscious, or to be aware of something. Your conscience is the little voice in your head telling you not to eat the entire pint of ice cream. Finally, to be conscientious is to be good, to do things thoroughly, to be ruled by an inner moral code. 

Taunt/Taut - Taunt is a jeer or provocation, taut means to be pulled tight, or not slack

Weary/Wary - weary means tired and wary means cautious

Rogue/Rouge - rogue is a person who has unaffiliated themselves from what they were before (is the general understanding); a person or thing that behaves in an aberrant, faulty, or unpredictable way - rouge is red

Wonton/Wanton - a wonton is a dumpling, wanton is (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked and/or sexually unrestrained

Haphazard/Halfhazard - haphazard means to  have a lack of plan, order, or direction - the other isn’t a word

Corporal/Corporeal - corporal is a lack of plan, order, or direction and corporeal is to have a physical existence: to be tangible: of a person’s body

Peck/Pec - the first is a kiss (peck) and the second is the shortened version of pectoral (pec)

Virile/Viral - to be virile is to have strength, energy, and a strong sex drive (typically said about men) and then this last year (2020) has personally taught us, is how viral a plague can really be, so of the nature of, caused by, or relating to a virus or viruses

Vulnerable/Venerable - vulnerable means being susceptible to physical or emotional attack or harm, and if a person is venerable they’re accorded a great deal of respect, especially because of age, wisdom, or character (or if you’re religious, holy)

Loose: the opposite of tight

Lose: to misplace something or the opposite of win.

Advice/Advise - in American English advice is a noun, you can give it to people, and advise is a verb, the act of giving advice

Ball/Bawl - people ball their fists when they are angry and ready to fight; people bawl when they cry loudly like a baby

Bear/Bare - to bear is to carry something physical or figurative like “to bear arms” or “to bear good news;” bare is when something is hairless, naked, or exposed as in the expression “baring your soul”

Hanger/Hangar - clothes go on a hanger in a closet or on a rack; airplanes go in a hangar to keep them safe

Definite/Defiant - when something is a sure thing it is definite; when someone acts out against authority they are defiant

Pour/Pore - you pour drinks or pour out your feelings, but your pores are the tiny holes in your skin that keep it healthy

Palate/Palette/Pallet - palate is the surface of your tongue that allows you to taste (e.g. palatable means “is enjoyable to eat”); a palette is a set of color options for paint or makeup; a pallet is a wooden platform heavy shipments are placed on so forklifts can move them around, or a pallet is a mattress stuffed with straw

One more example that I don’t see misspelled, but do see misused:

Soiled - primarily used to describe clothing or fabric that has been made very dirty with something gross and wet (feces, mud, vomit, food, etc.). It is not just a synonym for “wet,” it is very specific. If your female character has “soiled panties,” she is not sexy she just pooped her pants.

Sodden - a close synonym to “soaked,” except it normally has a negative meaning whereas soaked is neutral. You use sodden for objects that have been made soggy or ruined by too much liquid. It is not often used for buildings, cars, or other normally solid objects. Unless the building is made of straw or the car has a fabric interior and was flooded, neither will be described as sodden.

However... as a fandom creator (writer and artist), I sometimes feel like too much pressure is concentrated on creators. I don't know if this is a frustration others share? Not only should we keep making things, but somehow we also end up becoming these central fandom figures who can feel pressured into responding to comments (or else we're called arrogant or ungrateful), making friends (or else we're rude for ignoring well-meaning people who reach out), and being the drivers and pillars of that community (running events, responding to memes, etc. – and everything falls silent if we stop). It's a lot of work!! I don't always have the time and energy to make things for fun and then also engage in all the ways people might sometimes feel entitled to because they enjoy my works.

I really wish that more "non-creating" fans in the community would discover their fandom power!! and not just rely on the visible "producing" creators to be the only people worth engaging with. It takes nothing more than passion to write a meta-post about a character or a plot point, or to create an ask game, or to DM someone else who you see posting funny tags – not just the creator! Maybe your followers have other tips for evening out the balance a little more?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, anon. This is an observation I've seen in many parts of life, not just fandom.

A lot of people feel as though they need permission or an invitation of some sort in order to contribute. That's why I always end my answers by asking people to share their thoughts. I want to make it explicitly clear that I want people to add things into the reblogs (which I can then share out for more people to see) and the replies (which people can at least read even if I can't reblog).

I have heard fans who are readers but don't write fic say that they think they can't get an AO3 account unless they plan to post something. This is incorrect, of course, but a lot of people make that assumption.

I think at least some people (I don't know what kind of percentage) assume that someone who is writing fic or posting art or making podfics and video edits etc. has some sort of expertise that "allows" them to post.

People with less confidence or with less practice etc. sometimes need an extra nudge before they realize that they're welcome to contribute too. If that's the case for you, please allow me to say:

You are welcome to post in your fandom, even if no one invites you to. Even if you think you're not good enough. Even if your idea isn't "popular."

Start a conversation. Share a thought. Talk to folks who reblog cool shit. Be a folk who reblogs cool shit. You don't have to do everything in order to do something.

make a rec list

make a "here's all the fics I've found in this fandom with this one trope/general vibe/very particular setup I just think is Neat" list

make a "welcome to the fandom, here's the fics that people will just assume you've read/know about to get you started" list

Create whumps lists

Create lists of shippy moments

Make screenshot collections

Record and post clips of your show to get more people into your fandom

Make incorrect quote memes

Make silly little TikTok-style edits of your favs

Make character playlists

Figure out the layout of buildings/cities

Recreate those building in the Sims or with an online floor planner or even just draw it out because holy hell writers will be so thankful for that

Make your blorbo in various video game character creations

Build a pokemon team for your blorbo

Make up silly headcanons! What does everyone do at the fair or the beach or during a fire drill?

Outline a fic idea you have — maybe you don’t have the time or energy or you just don’t feel confident enough to create it, but share it anyway!

Create outfits based on your blorbo’s design or outfits they would wear

Collect interviews with the author, producer, director, mangaka etc

Similarly, translate interviews

I remember someone in the haikyuu!! fandom kept a twt thread of every time two characters were in the same panel. Not sure what the tumblr equivalent would be. I guess just a regular old post with lots of additions? (Send help; i'm not sure why my brain is struggling so badly to translate twitter threads to tumblr posts)

Run a quote bot account: I'm not sure of the status of quote bots in a post twitter era, but those were quite fun. Again an example from the hq!! fandom, there was the hq!! bastille bot which would spit out a bastille lyric + a ship. The siken bot would spit out a line of poetry + a ship name. On tumblr maybe the equivalent would be a gimmick blog?

Run a ship/character week. I think these are probably the easiest kind of fandom event to run. it doesn't take more than one person, a blog, and rudimentary graphics skills.

Are socmed AUs still a thing?

Make gifs

Try to figure out the layers to a character's outfit and share your studies with the world. (I'm looking directly at you, Hoyoverse and all you're what-even-is-that how-do-they-even-put-that-on character design. beautiful, but confusing)

Update fandom wikis

Log fandom history on fanlore.org (another project run by the Organization for Transformative Works, aka the parent of ao3)

Some suggestions:

Transcribe episodes for film/audio canons

Podfic! We can always use more podfic, and most people's phones have a voice recorder.

Create bingo sheets (e.g. make a fanwork with five or more of these tropes for a bingo; read/reblog fanworks in five or more of these categories for a bingo)

Be a Your Blorbo expert consultant! If I'm writing about a character I don't have strong feelings about, but I know one of my friends is constantly reblogging and posting about them, even if it's all silly memes and "character <3"-type posting, I'll sometimes reach out to them for advice on if I'm getting Their Blorbo right. It's absolutely invaluable and I appreciate these people so much.