I Like To Vibe

Some painting exercises

I began working on this last summer. Like many veteran fanfiction authors, I lament the decline in commenting that I’ve seen in my fandom, the Tolkien fandom. I’m also a humanities teacher, so I spend a good part of my day teaching young people how to write, and one lesson I’ve learned the hard way is that each type of writing involves unique skills that have to be learned. And commenting is a unique form of writing and one that comes with added stresses around social expectations and public performance. My research on the Tolkien fanfic community confirms this: Many people want to comment, but they simply don’t know what to say.

As a teacher of writing, I often use  sentence starters or mentor sentences. The writer uses these to jumpstart their thinking and writing, until they become comfortable enough to begin working independently. “101 Comment Starters” is built around this research-based strategy of teaching writing.

Some of the comment starters are simple enough that they can be merely copied and pasted. Others require filling in some blanks or providing some elaboration. In some cases, a because can be dropped if the reader isn’t comfortable providing that level of elaboration yet. In other cases, a more experienced commenter can add the because and elaborate more on their comment.

They also differ in their level of praise. They range from simple statements of how the author made the reader feel to compliments around an aspect of the author’s writing or their work in general. I’ve tried to limit words like really, very, and so as much as possible, except when it made the comment feel wooden. You’re welcome, of course, to add those words in if you feel they more accurately help capture how a story impacted you.

If you’re just starting to comment, please keep in mind that the vast majority of authors will love to hear from you! They don’t care how long or elaborate your comment is. They don’t care if your English is perfect or if you’re a little awkward. They just want to know that you’re reading and enjoying their work.

Finally, please feel free to reblog and share and add your own comment starters!

ETA: I’m officially declaring these in the public domain. If you want to use them in something, while I won’t turn down credit, don’t let the inability to give me credit for them to stand in your way. Share them, make stuff with them, whatever you want to get the comments flowing!

101 Comment Starters

I've been thinking a lot about the different shades of Steve Rogers we've seen on screen. This piece explores how they would each take the initiative—Whedon's Steve vs. Russo's Steve.

For Russo's Steve, the Tony in his world gives me a feeling so deeply resonant with one of my favorite Stony fics, "Celestial Navigation"—that specific blend of vulnerability and stubborn resilience against a sprawling, cosmic-scale fate. (And yes, I took the artistic liberty of giving this Tony his beard—a small fusion of timelines that just felt right for the soul of this character as I see him now.)

While working on this piece, that connection felt stronger than ever. It's a happy coincidence that I discovered the author of "Celestial Navigation" is active here on Tumblr! If you ever see this, I just wanted to put this out into the universe: Thank you for writing such a masterpiece.

(Click for Quality!)

So, I’m in an art history class that focuses on discussions of art in context of copyright law, derivative work, inspiration vs theft, pop art, etc etc. For my final project, I could do an art piece with a three page artist statement attached. I decided (thanks to @kitcatia for giving me the idea!) to do my project on Fan Labor and Fandom. That little guy there represents the characters, franchises, and stories that inspire us, and that big guy is us! The fans, the writers, the artists!

Kit had another great idea (they’re carrying me for this project lemme tell ya) to turn this into a DTIYS!

SO LETS GET TO IT! DTIYS RULES:

- keep the general same pose and composition. You CAN make edits as you see fit, though!

- It doesn’t have to be as heavily rendered as this. Hell, it can be a scribble in ms paint if you want!

- the Big Guy is supposed to represent You/Your Persona, but if you have a funnier idea I’m open to it!

- the little guy is supposed to be a fandom character, but don’t be afraid to do ocs too! You can also do MULTIPLE little guys should you so choose!

- open to any fandom, and any creator!

- Please let me know if it’s ok to use your work in my final presentation of the project, and if yes, how to credit you if at all!

- @ me! And use the #FanLoveDTIYS

DEADLINE: APRIL 20 (This deadline is only for those who wish to appear in my project. Feel free to continue the dtys for fun afterwards!

In the Thomas Harris works, every scene that Doctor Lecter is in manages to make it very clear that he’s dangerous, and everyone else is basically Damocles without being aware of the blade. He’s unsettling even when he’s charming, and the audience is always aware that he is the lion in the room. We can see the swords dangling by the hair over every other character.

Except the Winter Soldier is actually able take Steve’s weight (especially since if Steve does it like in the gif it’ll be the metal arm getting most of it)

and the two of them just freeze

Steve slowly realizing he’s being carried bridal style

Bucky the Winter Soldier blinking like MY PROGRAMMING DID NOT COVER THIS???

In every single story they wrote, one of the main characters either had, acquired, or considered adopting or buying a Bedlington Terrier. Always that one type of dog.

I never got tired of it. By about story 7 I was reading along thinking ‘when is the little lamb dog going to show up?’ and it didn’t even blip my weirdness radar.

A guide to designing wheelchair using characters!

FUNGUARY IS HAPPENING AGAIN!!! February is right around the corner, which means it’s soon time for Funguary 2024! the drawing event where we draw a bunch of mushroom based characters during the month of feb. This will be our third year of Funguary, and this time it’s a leap year!

Here’s how it works: Each week of the month will have a theme with seven different prompts, draw a mushroom character within that theme in order to join. The themes are Celestial, Demonic, Edible and Cryptic. Each week of February is a new theme. You don’t have to complete all the prompts, just one mushroom per theme/week is plenty!

If you’re hardcore you can definitely try and finish all the prompts though ;). The challenge intensity is adjustable to what suits you. This is a chill event where the goal is to just have fun and vibe, and honor the fungi kingdom with some really cool art🍄