But I'm stuck like a dope, with a thing called hope!

I’ve been in the Les Mis tumblr fandom for some years now. It’s a special community, with one very special event. 

The grind.

The adrenaline.

The no-betas-we-die-like-Le Cabuc. 

But the reality on the ground tells a different story. 

Here’s what I’ve observed about Barricade Day—what everyone’s really thinking, but too afraid to say ⬇️

1. June’s not coming earlier—but the online pace is picking up.

June 1st hits. Before you know it, Larmarque is dead, the barricades are up and everyone is posting the art they’ve spent weeks perfecting. And you? You’re frantically scrambling to get something together.

It’s just like a protest in a fanfic that mysteriously goes wrong. One minute everything’s good. You’re on track. The next, there’s smoke in the air, bricks being thrown, and bleeding twinks sheltering in a Starbucks. Or something like that.

The solution? Make time work for you. Barricade Day is whenever you say it is. The real thing already happened, so it’s not like Charles Jeanne cares which day you post your Enjonine fic.

2. People don’t want to fuck Enjolras anymore—and that’s a problem

There was a time when Aaron Tveit ruled this corner of the internet. All you had to do was post a gif of his blond wig and the reblogs would come flooding in. Enjolras thirst was a real source of power.

And now?

A gifset will get 20 reblogs if you’re lucky.

The fandom is only as strong as its horniest soldiers. To survive and thrive in an adapting environment we’ve got to commit. Enjolras porn won’t just happen. You’ve got to make it happen.

3. Migration is natural. Don’t get let behind.

Staying relevant means adapting your approach and going where the change is. Tumblr has had a good run, but it’s not where fresh new fandoms form.

X might just be the answer.

With a younger and more public fanbase, X is where it’s at these days. Now you don’t have to hide behind pseudonyms and keep things within communities—you can tag all the actors when posting your Amis gangbang art. 

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

The request is so urgent my boss needs it by the end of the work week. Which, y'know, is 5 PM on a Friday. So I have four hours to do it.

It's a forwarded request. Somebody contacted a member of the donation team asking for help, "I need a map from the Vietnam War to use for a presentation." It's somebody she's trying to coax into giving a five figure donation to the museum.

The request was asked to the donation team member, who then emailed my boss, who then emailed and called me urgently.

This map required:

North and South Vietnam in it

All four areas that South Vietnam was divided into for military purposes ('Corps') clearly delineated

Four cities, all of them horrifically misspelled, and only identifiable because I know what battle the requester is asking about (it’s in III Corps on the border with Cambodia) (the requester danced around the battle but I’m knowledgeable enough to identify it)

Has Laos and Cambodia in it

Has the Ho Chi Minh Trail in it

So. I was mad about the 'you have literally four hours to find a map with a lot of requirements.'

I was then mad at myself about finding a copyright free map from Texas Tech University within half an hour, proving her right for asking me to do it.

Then, after I found a map that perfectly met the requirements, I was equally amazed, baffled, and horrified when I read further into the forwarded email chain.

The donation team team member they were speaking to used AI to generate a map.

The above put half of North Vietnam in South Vietnam, made the Ho Chi Minh Trail a country, made 60% of Cambodia part of South Vietnam, put the DMZ extremely high up in North Vietnam, completely disconnected the southern tip of Vietnam, misplaced all of the Corps zones, etc etc

At the very last second the donation team member had a moment of divine clarity, remembering there's three historians on payroll to ask for this kind of thing from. So she contacted my boss while saying, "I had fun with this, but I decided I should check for accuracy before I send it to the donor! I need a fact check by the end of the day, then I send it"

My boss, while not the most knowledgeable on the Vietnam War, does know her geography. She took one look, and knew it was so off she called me to tell me how urgent it is that I look at the email and respond