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Happy Pride Month!

Faust is back for the 5th time! If you want to use the flag of your choice as an avatar, they're under the cut. They're free to use as long as it's for personal use only.

meanwhile every time a refined old crooner mentions a woman's "charms" you can basically imagine that "sexyback" by Justin Timberlake just started playing in the background.

"someone to hold in my arms/and know the magic of her charms" yeah sure mister bobby darin that sounds like a wholesome retro activity

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.

Other things you can do:

Add image descriptions to fanart/fanedits

Make crappy stickfigure comics

Share your fiber-arts/cosplays of characters

Record a podfic of one of your favorite fics (with permission!)

Act as a beta reader

Superman: Man of Tomorrow #12 - “Superman’s Day Off” (2020)

MY OWN THOUGHTS by Helena Minginowicz (Polish, b. 1984)

Thanks for reading,

This is the 10th Anniversary Edition of "It's Not A Race." Originally released in August, this version is months late because the prospect of adding pages to what is easily my most read works was particularly daunting.