Bill's fang earring

bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.

But I also think it’s worth talking about Ilya’s side of things.

He gets told no one wants him around, no one needs him, no one misses him. He’s expected to politely submit and accept being screamed at, insulted, and degraded. He’s told he has a responsibility to give and provide but can never achieve it. He’s told he’s lazy, disappointing, weak, shameful. And most importantly he’s not allowed to do shit about that. He has to nod politely, agree demurely, maybe mouth off a little if it’s his brother but always always obey. His purpose is to obey and provide and what he provides is never good enough.

So it makes sense that he’s so into their whole deal. Because Shane doesn’t just like him and want him around, Shane’s desperate for him. Shane’s willing to do insane things just for the privilege of having his attention. And Shane isn’t some nobody hanger on Shane is the absolute top dog in his world, he’s the most respected and most respectable and he’s on he’s knees begging for Ilya, only happy when he’s got Ilya, can’t fucking get enough of Ilya. He’s not obeying and subservient he’s making alllll the calls. He’s got all the power. He can snap his fingers and Shane, the actual Shane Hollander, is hitting his knees with his tongue out. And Shane never cruel to him or critical Shane is GRATEFUL. Shane is thanking him with tears in his eyes.

1. the Biggest source of jealousy is the reaction to Troy coming out. Because why does this white man get to have his perfect coming out on his own terms and he’s absolved of everything he’s ever said and done? But Shane was outed against his will and suddenly Every last little minute failure of his over his entire career has to be relitigated in a new light.

2. The Second biggest source of jealousy is that Troy is playing on a line with Ilya and it’s not even that he wants to play with Ilya it’s that Ilya’s line WORKS and Shane’s line DOESNT. He’s jealous of both Troy AND Ilya because they get to have better hockey than him.

3. Any jealousy he feels over the Troy + Ilya friendship is secondary to the complex feelings he has about Troy being objectively a good friend to Ilya but him kind of resenting that Ilya is friends with Troy because he kind of hates Troy but also it’s not like Troy was uniquely racist and if he iced out every single person in the league who had ever said something kind of racist to him he’d have no friends at all and really he should be used to it by now and he should be able to swallow this like he swallows everything else but he feels like he’s losing his mind a bit because it seems like everyone has completely forgotten everything Troy ever said and everyone is content to rewrite that history as it only ever being Dallas Kent who said those things and really Troy WAS worse than a lot of other guys in the league, and towards Shane he was even worse than Kent sometimes.

4. One day Troy comes to Shane with his head hung to apologize for the terrible things he said in the past. He directly admits that he was wrong and that he was using a performance of bigotry as a shield so no one would look too closely at him. He admits he was always very attracted to Shane and he felt so ashamed of it that he lashed out towards him, and he hopes Shane can forgive him at some point. You understand, Troy says, you know what it’s like to be attracted to someone you shouldn’t be and have to cover that up. You and Roz pretended to hate each other for years.

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.

Describe art or (make fandom accessible!)

Offer to beta read or be a fic continuity adviser

Create memes

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...