#admin!

Well I do now! Lol

I'd usually just put the characters name with smut after it but now I've created a blog specific tag: arachnidsmut

◯⠀﹒⠀🪱⠀﹒⠀𓇼⠀ ﹒

*fixes glasses* *cracks knuckles* *tilts computer screen just so* Alright, friends, let’s do this.  

Upon reading the title of this post, you may be wondering who I am to proclaim such a thing, but rest assured—you are in good hands, my friends, for I am a Writer. Nay, even more than that—I am a Writer of Comments.

Did you know? I love writing. I adore it. I love knocking out word after word after word of text, lovingly building universes for my favorite fictional characters to inhabit. Don’t believe me? I have a 100K WIP on ao3 right this moment. No story of mine is below 50K. I am a Writer, and a long-winded one, and quite honestly a well-known one in certain circles. I’m not a BNF by any means, but I am an MNF. A Medium-Name Fan, if you will.

But you know what? My favorite, absolute favorite thing to write is not drabbles, not fics, but comments. Yeah, you read that right—comments. 

You see, even before I am a Writer, I am a Reader, and an excitable one at that. A reader who loves overdone tropes and niche-interest plots in equal measure. A reader who loves cute schmoopy drabbles as much as she loves long, dense WIPs. And I love, love, love commenting! I’m not as prolific at it as I would like, but I love it! And I’m good at it. I can leave comments that make a writer’s month. And to be perfectly honest, I adore being an MNF for the sole reason that apparently people get even more excited when I leave comments because they know me, and they like my stuff! And if an author you like likes your stuff, it’s gotta be good, right? Right?

I know the feeling, and do you know how much joy it brings me to know I’ve let other people feel the same? It’s fantastic.  

Validation. That is the most valuable thing I’ve ever put out into the world. Validation of myself. Validation of my friends. Validation of that one fellow fan I only ever interacted with once. Validation. See, the word ‘valid’ gets used a lot, and I love it because I know its meaning. The root of it is the Latin word ‘valere,’ meaning ‘to be strong, to have worth.’ (I cannot for the life of me remember which movie scene I learned it from, but it’s stuck with me ever since.)

So, to be valid, at its core, is to have worth, and to give validation to others is the most powerful thing any community can do—to tell its individual members that they are worthy. They are strong. They are good enough.

To my first-time commenters, let me start there: You are worthy. You are strong. You are good enough. It’s difficult to give worth to others when you don’t have much for yourself, so to any of my friends who never say anything because they think they don’t have anything worth saying: You do. That two-word comment you don’t want to leave because it’s not ‘good enough’? It is!! Because you wrote it.

Here’s a secret: to every writer, every artist, every podficcer, every kind of content creator there is, every commenter is a BNF. Like, are you kidding me? One ‘omg!!! <3’ can have me smiling for ten minutes straight!

If you’re a commenter, you are a big frickin’ deal, friend. Please, if you can, give the gift of your comments to the world.

Now, to be clear, this post isn’t for people who, for whatever reason, don’t want to comment. I love you and you are valid, my lurker friend! Sometimes you’re shy. Sometimes you don’t have the energy. Sometimes you can’t make the words work. Sometimes you’re reading on your friend’s laptop and you can’t remember your ao3 password and you can’t bring yourself to comment as a guest, because what if the writer replies, and the email you gave gets eaten, and you’ll never know what they said???

Whatever the reason, I understand. You are absolved of any blame. This is not a guide meant to shame or guilt anyone—sometimes people just can’t comment, and that’s fine. This post isn’t for you. I still hope you have a good day, knowing you are still a valid member of the fandom—you carry someone’s art or words or voice inside your head, and that is a precious, precious thing, a force of positivity. You’re sending good vibes into the world just consuming a fanwork and liking it, honestly.

Now, if you want to take that positivity and channel it a little more directly—send it back to the writer/artist/podficcer/calligrapher/knitter/abstract-ceramicist—then the best way to do that is to comment.      

Not sure how to do that? Read on, dear friend!

A Definitive Guide to Writing Kick-Ass Comments, as Written by a Writer

1. It does not matter how short the comment is. One of my most treasured comments is 3 words long. Seriously. It’s ‘i am DIE,’ which was a perfect reaction to a line I’d spent weeks planning to execute for maximum hurt, and I still cackle when I remember it.

2. It does not matter how long the comment is. Nobody is going to think you’re stalker-ish or weird if you write an essay, friend, take it from a commenter who’s copied & pasted fics onto Google docs & written reactions that way b/c she ran out of room in the ao3 comment box, or rambled until she ran out of wordspace on a tag for art.

3. It does not have to adhere to the rules of grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Grammar? I don’t know him, and I don’t care to, not when there’s comments in the offering. I had enough of Grammar while I was writing this damn thing, you think I need to think about him more? Hell, no! See above favorite comment for more proof if thou still doubtest me. (Also, artists don’t care about grammar ever, lmao, and if they say they do, I suspect they’re lying.)

4. ‘!!!’ and ‘sadkjfs;lkfjs;lfjsd;lfjslf’ and ‘ALL CAPS ALL THE TIME’ are all perfectly acceptable ways to comment. Nobody is demanding that you treat this comment like a short answer response on a reading assignment, alright? We want you to have fun and be excited. Or, you know, chill and awesome. Whatever floats your boat. (But creators remember ‘!!!’ people more, it’s just a fact.)

5. Be positive! I cannot say it loud enough—LAY ON THE PRAISE. Be enthusiastic, be rambly, be gushingly excited about this work. Praise it to the high heavens. Give it all the accolades. And, if you can’t do that, at least say it’s nice.

6. Not sure how to start? Start with ‘I.’ The stage is yours, it is your time to shine, it is allllllll about you. You think you’re the captive audience? HAHA. You have clearly never met a content creator, friend. There will never be a more riveted audience than them. Start your monologue, I promise they will value it over Shakespeare’s entire body of work: ‘I liked—’ ‘I loved—’ ‘I thought—’ ‘I felt—’ ‘Ohhhhhhhhhh daaaaaaaaaaang, I never would have guessed—’ Just say what you think.

7. Not sure how to end? Say ‘thank you.’ Ending a comment is super easy. Like the above metaphor, you have now finished your monologue to astounding applause, so take your bow. Do the little hand lift to the tech crew and director that every production of every play ever does, you know the one. That classy, ‘Here’s to you’ thing. Do that—thank your writer/artist for their hard work.

8. Don’t know what the hell goes in the middle? Tell them your reactions. Say you laughed. Say you cried. Say you gasped. Say you made a weird noise and scared your cat. Say you stayed up until 2 a.m. to read this fic. Say you read it on the bus. Say you read it while you were supposed to be doing homework. Say you ducked out of a lecture to read it. Say that when you got the notification for the update, you yelled, ‘OH MY GOD’ in the middle of the supermarket. For artists—say you stared at it for hours. Say you made it the background of your phone. Say this is the picture you picture when you think of the character. For podficcers—say you liked how they spoke. Say you liked the way they paused, how they emphasized certain words. Say characters speak in your head with their voice now. Tell them how this work became a part of your day, and you will make a creator’s day.  

9. Quote the work itself. This above all things is the way to go the extra mile, btw. If you quote a writer’s words back to them, and literally say nothing else beyond that except ‘my fave line’ at the beginning or the end or, hell, even the middle, there is a high possibility that said writer will now think of you as That One Reviewer™ and would hand over their first-born if you asked. Use this fancy comment box for ease of quoting, and all writers are now yours to command. This goes for artists, too, btw—mention the color scheme. The way they drew a certain expression. How the photos in an edit went perfectly together. How the font was beautiful. Just—details, friend. What about this work was so compelling it compelled you to comment? They want to know!!!  

10. The work needed work? Don’t mention it. This could be a writer’s first-ever fic. This could be an artist’s first posted piece. This could be a writer writing in a language that isn’t their mother-tongue. This could be an artist who was just drawing to make a bad day better. You don’t know. Don’t rain on somebody’s parade when you could bring the sunshine instead.

Look, constructive criticism is all well and good, but the fic author who wants actual concrit on their fluffy 1k oneshot is a relatively rare beast, possibly less than 10% of all authors ever (I’m pulling these stats from thin air and baseless conviction, don’t quote me). And those who do want it probably already have betas for that sort of thing. If you’re going to mention one critical thing, please slather on an additional five positive things.

Think of it like this—imagine your comment is a fancy entree at a wedding or something: the nice things you say are the steak, the mashed potatoes. MmmMMMmmm, so good. Mentioning typos? Ehhhh, honestly those are like the veggies on the side—some people love ‘em, some people don’t, everybody agrees it’s sort of necessary if you want to call this a ~formal dinner~. Criticism? IT’S LIKE FUCKING PARSLEY, OKAY. NOBODY WANTS A PLATE THAT IS NOTHING BUT PARSLEY. DON’T DO IT.*

*The one caveat being if an author/artist is being racist/sexist/homophobic/classist/ableist/some sort of unfortunately terrible that isn’t related to their writing/drawing style. If you suspect that they’re doing it out of ignorance, I do recommend that you try and break it to them gently and politely, or delegating it to someone else if you cannot, since most people are decent at heart and are capable of unlearning the toxic things fed to them by general society. If you don’t have the spoons for this, I understand, it’s not your job to do so, you may just want to not engage instead. If you suspect they’re doing it on purpose, do not engage, and report them using the appropriate channels. Either way, stay safe and take care of yourself! <3

11. If you accidentally typed the words ‘update soon,’ delete them. I know, I know, your hand just slipped. You didn’t mean to. It was a mistake. That’s fine! You’ve caught yourself, nobody saw, we can just go back to step 5 and start over, no one the wiser. 

Resist the temptation, friend. Believe me, when the writer gets the message in their inbox, they’re already sweating bullets. You do not know the sweet, sweet relief they feel when they read a nice, wonderful comment that doesn’t mention how long they’ve been on hiatus. The relief may be so strong and euphoria-causing that, often enough, they open up that word doc and start typing away, bolstered by a stranger’s kind thoughts and the desire to repay them. Mention the words ‘update soon’ (yes, even followed by a ‘please’) and instead there is a searing sense of sadness, self-loathing, and shame, and no writing shall be done that day, though there may be plenty of drinking. You also have the writers whose response shall be a searing surge of spite, and they will begin work on something completely different, and post that instead. Both of these things will not get you what you want. Do not ask for the update.)  

(For artists, the two words not allowed near each other are ‘draw more,’ or possibly the seven words, ‘why don’t you draw X character/pairing instead.’ Just—do not ask.)  

12. Don’t read other comments until after you’ve posted yours. This one’s more of a suggestion. Some people like reading comments before they write one, and that’s fine. However, in the same way a lot of fic authors won’t write a fic ‘if it’s already been done,’ I hear a lot of people deciding not to comment because ‘all the good stuff has already been said.’ Look, 15 different people can all say ‘I like this!’ and nothing else, and writer/artist will still light up, because that’s 15 people who liked it enough to say something. You had the exact same thought as somebody else? Still say it! The creator gets to know they did their job right because multiple people understood what they meant to convey. :)

13. Nobody is judging you for your comments, and if they are, they’re assholes. Again, this isn’t a test. You aren’t being graded. I once got a comment from somebody who put it through Google translate in order to write it, and the fact that they wrote to me in a language that wasn’t even their first eclipsed every possible complaint I could have had over grammar or bad spelling, not that I had any in the first place because I was too busy squeeing over getting a comment. Which brings me to my next point:

14. When writing, writers are cats. When receiving comments, they’re dogs—you can’t go wrong, friend. During writing, nothing will ever satisfy a writer. Not the way they structure their paragraphs, not the verbs they use, not even the way their laptop is positioned is ever quite ideal. Ditto for artists. They sound like this: *insert constant discontented hissing* With comments, though? They’re like this: ‘Comment! Comment for me? ME? ME!!! I’M HERE. COMMENT, YES, ME, I’M A GOOD WRITER/ARTIST, YES, THAT’S ME, GIMME THE COMMENT, THROW IT TO MEEEEEEE.’ It’s really really really difficult to mess it up. Really.

15. If a creator doesn’t reply to your comment, it’s not that they don’t like you. They probably just didn’t have the spoons. I am...notoriously bad at replying to comments. I’m better at commenting on other people’s work than I am replying to comments I receive. It’s not your fault—it’s just that I want to write you something as great as what you wrote me. And I—I get excited. I say too much. I reply to each and every comment with the enthusiasm that I write everything else, and I get burnt out. That’s why I don’t mind if you don’t comment. I get the struggle! I understand it deeply! I don’t hold it against you.

But if you do comment? Oh, wow. I am carrying your words around in my head for days. Weeks. Months, even! I see your username and I smile. You made my day! And even if I could not muster the energy to reply, I held your words to my heart and they are like rainbows illuminating my soul.

16. There is no one way to write a good comment. A comment is, at the base of it, an expression of the thoughts somebody else caused you to have. It is a direct link between two minds thinking about the same set of words/visuals/sounds/etc. Isn’t that cool?

It’s you telling your best friend they’re awesome while drunk in your living room at 3 a.m. It’s you telling the person next to you in line that they’ve got great shoes. It’s you screaming with joy when your favorite band comes on the radio. It’s you sending a postcard home when you’re in a new city. It’s a shout-out to the world—’Hey! You’re awesome!’ A stranger turns around and points at themself, and you yell, ‘Yeah, you!’ And when they walk away smiling, you know you did something to make this world a brighter place. You did.

tl;dr: To write a good comment, all you have to do is be you.          

Now that you have been thoroughly educated, I thus bestow upon you the great power, the supreme power, that most valued and valid of powers—the power to comment. Go forth, and use that power wisely, enthusiastically, and, above all, kindly.

Romanogers Week Presents:

Natasha Appreciation Weekend 2018 ↳ October 19TH ~ October 21ST

The celebration will start from October 19th (12:01 am EST) to October 21st (11:59 pm EST). On our official appreciation weekend, everybody is welcome to participate without any exclusive sign-up.

This Appreciation Weekend is our fandom’s celebration to show our love and support for the ship with all types of fanworks we can make, such as fanfiction, graphics, aesthetics, mood boards, gifsets, fan mixes, fanvids, fanart, etc. with a special focus on Natasha Romanoff! Whether or not you believe they belong together, you can’t deny that Natasha and Steve have a special bond. So let’s explore their relationship, from romance to brotp and everything in between, all interpretations are up to you! Every single fan contribution is welcome!

NOTE: There are eight prompts to choose from, but you do NOT have to do all eight for the weekend event! You can do as many as you want, although we would like to challenge all participants to do at least three if you have the time.

What to know more about? Rules & Guidelines

We will track the tag #romanogersweek during all the event. So, don’t forget to tag in the first five tracked tags of your post.

Remember our Natasha Appreciation Weekend Themes are:  

Home Is Where the Heart Is ~ your home will always be the place for which you feel the deepest affection, no matter where you are. What does that mean for Steve and Natasha, and how does this affect their relationship?

An Unlikely Friendship ~ The Soldier and the Spy; no two people could be any more different and yet, here they are... together.

Weekend Adventure ~ If you could go anywhere and do anything you wanted, what would it be? Steve and Natasha have a rare weekend off and does chaos ensue? Or is it nice and relaxing? You decide.

Long Distance ~ traveling or operating between distant places or between people. Whether Natasha and Steve conquer this is up to your interpretation.

"...remember when we did this?” ~  the mental capacity or faculty of retaining and reviving facts, events, impressions, etc., or of recalling or recognizing previous experiences... OR as we all know it, the journey of Nat and Steve.

Secrets That Only You Know ~ It’s no secret that Natasha is full of secrets... but maybe the secrets aren’t what you think they are. Could be fluffy, could be angsty.

The Sparks That Fly Between Us ~ Chemistry between the two characters is plain for everyone to see.

I’d Like to Hangout With You My Whole Life ~ The one person you’ll never get sick of and can be around them for 24/7.

All fanworks (fanfiction, fanart, gifsets, graphics, photosets, fan mixes, mood boards, aesthetics, quotes graphics, etc) are allowed and the interpretation of the themes is up for your consideration.

We are looking for more EXO-L to join us! So we want to hire a few mods who are confident in their knowledge of EXO and mainly Xiumin, all those who are capable of learning our system quickly to help keep the blog updated! Please only apply if you want and are serious about being a mod!!

As a mod you have to:

Must be able to update regularly (in other words you must have time available)

Must have a basic understanding of weibo/naver/twitter/etc. (if you don’t know how to navigate these websites we can teach you)

Must be familiar with our tagging and posting system

Must be responsible!

Know many dates as you can of the events (or at least its name)

Please send your application here with the information below:

Name:

Country/Timezone:

Email (used for your main tumblr blog):

How many hours per day can you dedicate to posting/updating:

Any admin experience (not required):

*Line ID:

How many dates of the following photos can you identify? Please send the date or at least the name or type of the events that you know** [Click here to see the photos]

Make sure all the information is correct before sending it!

*It’s not essential