Tippen's Funky SPOP Hut

Been rewatching she-ra . Behold my wife

iHave you ever been reading a WIP with infrequent updates? Are your update more frequently comments ignored or worse yet met with irritation and accusations of ingratitude?

We, fic authors, know you mean well. We know that most likely you only meant to express excitement for what you just read and your desire to read more. I’m not going to belabor the point that fic writing is difficult or time-consuming or delve into the dull details of how tedious the act of loading a fic to a platform, tagging it, creating a Tumblr post to share etc…is. I’m going to tell you what to say to get updates more quickly from your favorite WIP authors.

Anything worth having is worth working for. The more we labor for our communities, the more pleasure we will all take in them.

The next time you feel an urge to type “update please” or “update sooner” or maybe you’re really frustrated because you really want to know what happened in a particular fic I want you to stop and think a moment about why it is that you are feeling what you are feeling about that particular fic and I want you to write that instead.

Are you dying to know what happen? Do you really want to see your OTP kiss under the stars? Was it so funny that you snorted milk out of your nose and you want to snort milk out of your nose again? Write that.

Were you depressed and a fic made you laugh? Were you having a bad week and discovering this fic gave you something to look forward yo say that.

Its going to take you a little more time and energy, but when you put your energy into comments it comes back to me the author, and I have that much more energy to put into that fic, and that means your update gets to that much sooner.

Think about a garden with beautiful flowers. For it to thrive for us to appreciate the flowers it has to be planted, weeded, water, fertilized, pruned, treated for potently harmful insects or pests. If there are benches to sit on they must be cleaned, trash has to be picked up; paths have to be kept clear.

But your gardeners are volunteers, and this work is a hobby. That means everything else they have to do comes first.

Now you’re not a gardener so you don’t know which flowers should be in the shade and which in the sunlight nor the best way to prune them or what fertilizer to use. But that’s okay; you can wipe down the benches, sweep the paths and pulls the weeds. Anything that you invest in our garden will make it better.

So take a few minutes, really think about what you liked and say what you liked. Think about what you want to see more of or are intrigued by and say that too. Ask some questions about what happens next. Ask about a character or aspect of the story that you are interested in.

Take a few minutes and invest in us, invest in our communities, you already know we’re worth it and you’ll be amazed at how much more you get back.

@inng ever fic writer that I can think of off the top of my head.

Art by Sheida Sardashti

June’s Theme: #MastersOfTheUniverse

Presented by IDEA Academy

Discover the artists of the Character Design Challenge community and the current Theme of the Month in our Facebook Group! And when you repost your design on our Patreon page, you can also win awesome prizes every month and choose the future themes!

Art by Στελιος Δεδουσης

June’s Theme: #MastersOfTheUniverse

Presented by IDEA Academy

Discover the artists of the Character Design Challenge community and the current Theme of the Month in our Facebook Group! And when you repost your design on our Patreon page, you can also win awesome prizes every month and choose the future themes!

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.